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New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How Do You Adapt James Baldwin? Very Carefully.
Few writers turn out their career-defining work on the first try. But that was James Baldwin with his 1953 debut novel, 'Go Tell It on the Mountain.' The semi-autobiographical book, about a day in the life of a Black teen whose stepfather is a minister of a Harlem Pentecostal church, was received by critics with glowing praise. Today it remains lauded as one of the great novels of modern American literature. Baldwin's second novel, 'Giovanni's Room,' was quite a different story — literally and figuratively. A thematic departure from its predecessor, the novel was about two gay white men: David, a closeted American man, who falls in love with Giovanni, an Italian bartender, in Paris. In the book Baldwin unpacks motifs related to masculinity and queerness, classism and American exceptionalism all through sparkling dialogue and robust, deeply ruminative prose. Though now considered a significant work of the 20th-century queer literary canon, 'Giovanni's Room' didn't share the immediate adoration and popularity of its predecessor. In fact, it was rejected by his publisher, Knopf, when first submitted. 'We think that publishing this book, not because of its subject but because of its failure, will set the wrong kind of cachet on your writing and estrange many of your readers,' the editor Henry Carlisle wrote in a letter to Baldwin in 1955. But Dial Press published the book in 1958, and almost immediately Baldwin had further plans for it. First there was the stage. In 1958 he produced a dramatization of 'Giovanni's Room' for the Actors Studio starring the Turkish actor Engin Cezzar as Giovanni. The play didn't make it to Broadway, but Baldwin intended to return 'Giovanni's Room' to the stage, or even adapt it to film. He insisted on creative control, which hindered some potential efforts from other artists. In the late '70s he collaborated with the South African filmmaker Michael Raeburn on a screenplay, with hopes of big names like Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando taking part. The project never got off the ground, though; Baldwin's literary agent requested $100,000 for the book option, which the writer couldn't afford. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Richard Johnson: Tom Cruise seems ‘enchanted' by Ana de Armas
NEW YORK — It's hard to tell whether Tom Cruise and Ana de Armas are just friends helping promote their films by hanging out together or something more. Cruise is hawking 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' and de Armas is plugging 'Ballerina.' A source who saw them in a private room at Annabel's in London said, 'He looks enchanted by her, and she looks very happy with him.' But don't forget, they are actors. Cruise, 62, was expected to end the series with this, the eighth 'Mission Impossible' movie, but it's already grossed over $450 million worldwide, so we'll see. Cruise has been working on other ideas, though, including a movie version of the old Lee Majors TV show, 'The Six Million Dollar Man.' It would have to be six billion today. In case you weren't glued to the tube in the '70s, Majors played a grievously injured astronaut, rebuilt by the government with superhuman powers. Cruise's films have grossed billions worldwide, so he'll be back on the big screen soon for sure. **** Elon Musk — who has at least 14 children with four mothers — provided a laugh at the Literacy Partners Annual Gala at Pier Sixty. During her speech, '60 Minutes' star Lesley Stahl asked any women in the audience who had a child by Elon Musk to please raise their hand. 'Statistically, there should be at least six of you,' she quipped. Honoree Bob Woodward recalled Carl Bernstein coming to him in the late 1980s and suggesting they interview Donald Trump. 'Are you f–king serious!' Woodward replied, commenting that Bernstein — who was present in the audience — 'has the best nose in the business.' Also honored were Knopf editor Erroll McDonald, TV correspondent Cynthia McFadden and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Oprah Winfrey slipped into the Literacy Partners gala through a side door, skipping the red carpet and the paparazzi. She gave a speech about the importance of reading before disappearing into the night. **** Christine Mack loves discovering and helping emerging artists. Her Mack Art Foundation provides a studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and a nearby apartment so they can work. 'I've never had so much fun,' she told me. 'Art brings people together. Art is not for the rich. It's for everyone.' Mack will be honored Aug. 23 at the Southampton Arts Center Summerfest, where she'll show some of her collection of artists like Rashid Johnson, Kenny Scharf, KAWS and Keith Haring. On June 28, the Center will host its annual kick-off party, 'Whimsy: Motown Magic,' which will feature dancing to the classics — from 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' to 'Superstition' — performed by That Motown Band. Hosts include Jamee and Peter Gregory, Kara Ross, Sylvia Hemingway, Lauren Roberts, Nicole and Allen Salmasi, and the center's co-founder J. Whitney Stevens. Mack, who finances her foundation by buying and selling art, explained how easy it is to help young artists. 'I'd buy their first painting so they can pay their rent.' **** Musicians Grace Jones and Janelle Monáe set tongues wagging as they dirty danced into the wee hours in the club at the Public Hotel on the Lower East Side. The pair had performed earlier in the night at the Blue Note Jazz Festival, where Jones hula-hooped to a song in sheer black tights, a thong, and one of her gigantic signature red and black headdresses. Later at the club, Monáe, who identifies as pansexual and non-binary, wore a black beret with patches, oversized red heart-shaped glasses, and red gloves as the two embraced and danced to the music. Monáe took to the mic several times to serenade the crowd, who went wild as the two mixed and mingled with their fans. Grace told friends that she and Monáe have a song coming out this summer. The pair were out swinging until nearly 5 a.m. **** Grammy-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and composer Karen LeFrak have released 'Romántico,' a new CD of world premiere recordings. LeFrak, the wife of real estate tycoon Richard LeFrak, has composed over 200 pieces and released 17 albums that have received over 45 million streams since 2021. She has also had her works performed by orchestras around the world, including the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. Her next work, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, has been commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., and will be performed next year. The new CD is available on all platforms, including Spotify, Amazon, and at **** Former congresswoman Carolyn Maloney attended her former spokesperson Adrien Lesser's birthday dinner at Shun Lee Cafe along with 'Sex and the City' author Candace Bushnell, designer Julia Haart, CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, former NYC nightlife mayor Ariel Palitz and longevity doctor Amanda Khan. **** Out & About: Gurney's, a Montauk favorite with everyone from Scarlett Johansson to Naomi Watts, has a new restaurant, Gigi's, opening this week, headed by chef Justin Lee who was previously at Mina Group and French Laundry … Foursome, a new Turkish restaurant, whose name references its four owners — Haldun Kilit, Kaan Sekban, Tuba Demircioglu and Oya Mungan — is serving up Mediterranean fare at 9 Jones St. The new hot spot is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Their rainbow-colored pancakes, celebrating Pride Month, have gone viral on Instagram … Gallerist Quang Bao from 1969 Gallery gave a dinner for artist Radu Oreian and his solo show 'That Magic Light' at Au Cheval's secret subterranean room on Cortlandt Alley and Walker Street. The show will be up until Saturday. ________
Express Tribune
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
After the last word
On April 22, nearly two and a half years after Joan Didion's death, a slim but arresting volume titled Notes to John appeared on shelves. Published by Knopf, the collection comprises fragments: personal memos, tender jottings, reminders to herself, and letters addressed to her late husband, John Gregory Dunne, after his death in 2003. In true Didion style, even her unfinished, offhand scraps shimmer with clarity and literary precision. But reading Notes to John is a disquieting experience: you are tugged in close, into the bone of her grief, and yet held at arm's length. It is as if you've found someone's diary under their pillow and, despite knowing better, can't stop turning the pages. That tug-of-war between public and private, between a writer's legacy and their consent, is the central tension in publishing a dead person's notebooks. It's a literary act and a voyeuristic one. Notes to John may be the catalyst, but the phenomenon is hardly new. From the exhaustive curation of Virginia Woolf's diaries to the belated release of Franz Kafka's letters (which he explicitly asked to be destroyed), publishing posthumous writing has become a well-oiled machine. The ethics, however, remain as blurry as a half-erased pencil note in the margin of a draft. The author is absent There is something particularly vulnerable about the genre of the note. Unlike novels or essays, letters and diaries are not written with an audience in mind; at least, not a public one. And yet, perhaps paradoxically, they often reveal more than an entire memoir. In Didion's Notes to John, her sentences are brief, sharp, sometimes halting. "I never feel guilty about working," she writes, somewhere between dream and discipline. It's devastating in its casualness. But should we be reading this? When you hold a writer's diary, you are confronted with the illusion of intimacy. But the writer is gone. They cannot clarify, redact, or resist. Their editor is often a family member, a literary executor, or a publisher with contractual rights but not always moral ones. Shaun Usher's Lists of Note and More Lists of Note anthologise lists written by the famous and the long-dead: Da Vinci's shopping notes, Marilyn Monroe's acting prep, Isaac Newton's sins, presented with curatorial glee. They're fascinating, yes, but they also decontextualise deeply personal documents into coffee-table curiosities. Dead men do tell tales In Kafka's case, the betrayal was flagrant. He instructed his friend Max Brod to burn all of his unpublished manuscripts. Brod didn't, and the result is that much of Kafka's genius, The Trial, The Castle, his heartbreaking letters to Milena and Felice, came to light only after his death. Without that breach of trust, there would be no Kafka in the canon. So was Brod wrong? Legally, no. Literarily, certainly not. Ethically? Well. Virginia Woolf's diaries and letters were curated posthumously first by her husband Leonard Woolf, and then by his nephew, Quentin Bell. Leonard admitted to cutting large swathes of material. Her personality, her flirtations, her frustrations with the Bloomsbury crowd, these only surfaced in later, more complete editions. Each round of publication brought her closer to her readers and arguably farther from the version of herself she wanted to project. We are reading a Woolf curated by Leonard, filtered through edits and omissions; we are mourning a Didion arranged by her editor, not by Didion herself. The issue at hand is not just literary but legal. The ownership of the "self" after death falls into ambiguous hands, sometimes the estate, sometimes the publisher, sometimes the reader's projection. In Didion's case, her longtime editor Shelley Wanger helped assemble the notes, presumably with care and intention. But Didion, famously in control of her image and language, is no longer here to confirm whether she wanted these fragments to be seen. The romance of rawness There's something addictive about the "raw" version of a writer. We crave the uncut, the messy, the bloodied first draft. That desire is partly what fuels the publication of these private documents. They allow us to feel like we've accessed something real, beyond performance. The literary world, in turn, benefits from this hunger. Editors gain prestige for unearthing unpublished material. Publishers reap sales from both completists and the newly curious. Fans post screenshots of notes that feel like confessions. Everyone wins, except maybe the person who wrote them. This urge isn't limited to literary estates. Think of how Anne Frank's diary was originally edited by her father to remove parts about her sexuality and frustration with her mother. Later, full editions emerged, richer and more complicated. Readers rejoiced, but the diary's shift from personal record to historical document carries a cost. Somewhere, the lines blur between honouring a voice and exploiting it. Afterlife in the internet age Today, we all keep fragments: Google Docs with no title, iPhone notes about dreams or shopping or shame. If we're writers, perhaps we think some of these might be useful for a future essay, a novel, a letter we mean to write but never do. But what if, after we die, someone else decides what deserves to be seen? The politics of posthumous publication are not just about famous authors; they are about all of us. In the digital age, where drafts and thoughts live forever in clouds and caches, anyone's notes might outlive them. The desire to know a person more "authentically" can too easily become a desire to know them without their permission. Copyright adds another layer of complexity. A note never meant for publication occupies a murky legal space; its ownership is uncertain. Grief, nostalgia, even a stray sentence from a dead woman to her dead husband all become subject to claims, though they resist easy commodification. In The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion wrote about keeping John's shoes after he died, irrationally believing he might need them. Notes to John feels like an extension of that magical thinking, a belief that speaking to the dead can somehow keep them present, or that reading their words might bring them back. Yet publishing such words transforms a private ritual into a public spectacle. The dynamics of posthumous publication often benefit publishers, estates, and readers, while consent from the author remains absent. As readers, we inherit both the privilege and the burden of that imbalance. We are owed nothing, and yet we often take everything. To read Notes to John is to be moved, but also to be implicated. The dead may not speak for themselves, but they wrote. That, sometimes, must be enough.
Los Angeles Times
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, June 15
1. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program. 2. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 3. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 4. Never Flinch by Stephen King (Scribner: $32) Holly Gibney is back on the case, this time facing both a serial killer and a stalker. 5. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. 6. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 7. Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf: $30) Two Floridians are plunged into a mystery involving dark money and darker motives. 8. Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown & Co.: $30) The bestselling crime writer returns with a new cop on a mission, this time on Catalina Island. 9. The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Henry Holt & Co.: $29) An unexpected wedding guest gets surprise help on her journey to starting anew. 10. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Ace: $30) A man and his ex's cat try to survive a sadistic game show in the first book of the popular fantasy series. … 1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 2. Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (Penguin Press: $32) Inside President Biden's doomed decision to run for reelection and the hiding of his serious decline by his inner circle. 3. Shoveling S— by Kass Lazerow and Michael Lazerow (Amplify Publishing: $26) Two entrepreneurs share hard-learned lessons. 4. Notes to John by Joan Didion (Knopf: $32) Diary entries from the famed writer's journal. 5. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A call to renew a politics of plenty and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. 6. The #1 Dad Book by James Patterson (Little, Brown & Co.: $25) The bestselling author's tips on being a better father. 7. Steve Martin Writes the Written Word by Steve Martin (Grand Central Publishing: $30) A collection of greatest hits from the beloved actor and comedian. 8. I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally (Gallery Books: $30) The restaurateur relates his gritty childhood and rise in the dining scene. 9. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease. 10. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator) (Scribner: $20) The 'Braiding Sweetgrass' author on gratitude, reciprocity and community, and the lessons to take from the natural world. … 1. Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley: $20) 2. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 3. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 4. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 5. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 6. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage: $19) 7. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19) 8. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Grand Central: $20) 9. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Penguin: $18) 10. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) … 1. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 2. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 3. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20) 4. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17) 5. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 6. The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Vintage: $19) 7. Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco: $19) 8. Eve by Cat Bohannon (Vintage: $20) 9. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18) 10. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Vintage: $18)
Los Angeles Times
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, June 8
1. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 2. Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown & Co.: $30) The bestselling crime writer returns with a new cop on a mission, this time on Catalina Island. 3. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. 4. Never Flinch by Stephen King (Scribner: $32) Holly Gibney is back on the case, this time facing both a serial killer and a stalker. 5. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 6. Spent by Alison Bechdel (Mariner Books: $32) The bestselling writer's latest comic novel takes on capitalism and consumption. 7. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 8. Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf: $30) Two Floridians are plunged into a mystery involving dark money and darker motives. 9. My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende (Ballantine Books: $30) A young writer in the late 1800s travels to South America to uncover the truth about her father. 10. Audition by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead Books: $28) An accomplished actor grapples with the varied roles she plays in her personal life. … 1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 2. Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (Penguin Press: $32) Inside President Biden's doomed decision to run for reelection and the hiding of his serious decline by his inner circle. 3. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A call to renew a politics of plenty and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. 4. The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad (Random House: $30) A guide to the art of journaling, with contributions from Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem and others. 5. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer on how to be a creative person. 6. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf: $28) Reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values. 7. Steve Martin Writes the Written Word by Steve Martin (Grand Central Publishing: $30) A collection of greatest hits from the beloved actor and comedian. 8. Mark Twain by Ron Chernow (Penguin Press: $45) The Pulitzer-winning biographer explores the life of the celebrated American writer. 9. Notes to John by Joan Didion (Knopf: $32) Diary entries from the famed writer's journal. 10. Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (W. W. Norton & Co.: $32) The naturalist explores rivers as living beings whose fate is tied with our own. … 1. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 2. Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley: $20) 3. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 4. Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Grove Press: $17) 5. Sandwich by Catherine Newman (Harper Perennial: $19) 6. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 7. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) 8. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 9. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19) 10. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury … 1. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 2. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 3. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20) 4. All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley (Simon & Schuster: $19) 5. Cultish by Amanda Montell (Harper Perennial: $20) 6. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $13) 7. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17) 8. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 9. The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (Penguin: $19) 10. The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan (Knopf: $36)
