In an essay that reflects on the recent rediscovery and celebration of works by Lucia Berlin, Kathleen Collins, and Eve Babitz, Parul Sehgal writes about the critic’s responsibility when writing about works of literature by women that have been lost. “It’s not enough to give thanks that these writers have been restored to us; we need to ask why they vanished in the first place.”
Penguin Random House is shutting down its imprint Spiegel & Grau. The news has come as a surprise to many in the industry, in part because Spiegel & Grau has published a number of groundbreaking books since it started as an imprint of Doubleday in 2005. A small selection of titles it has published: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz’s Beastie Boys Book, Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, Jay-Z’s DECODED, and Piper Kerman’s Orange Is the New Black. The news of the closure follows recent efforts to reorganize the various imprints of PRH, including changes in management at Crown in December.
Ron Howard is adapting J.D. Vance’s best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy.
Stephen Elliott is seeking to subpoena Google for the names of people who named and wrote about him on the “Shitty Men in Media” list. Last year, Elliott filed a lawsuit against the list’s creator, the writer Moira Donegan, as well as 30 “Jane Does” who commented on the list.
The Man Booker Prize may need to change its name, now that one of its sponsors is withdrawing its support. Last July, the novelist Sebastian Faulks, who had been long-listed for the prize, said that hedge funds were “the enemy.” Now, the Man Group, a hedge fund which contributes 1.6 million pounds to the prize each year, has announced that it is cutting ties with the prize.