Latest news with #Penguin
Hindustan Times
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Word on the street: A delightful collection of poems celebrates Indian cities across 2,000 years
It began with a bout of homesickness. While studying for a degree in economics at Yale in late-2020, Bilal Moin began to feel a yearning for Mumbai. He sought refuge in poems about the city, initially turning to classics by Arun Kolatkar, Adil Jussawalla and Dom Moraes. After a while, he cast his net wider. Entering keywords into the university library archive, he discovered poets he had never heard of, their verses on Bombay preserved in journals and magazines long-since defunct. In 2023, he mentioned his 'Word document of homesick scribbles' to Shawkat Toorawa, a professor of comparative literature at Yale. 'He pointed out that, pretty much by accident, I had put together an anthology,' says Moin, speaking from Oxford, where he is now pursuing a Master's degree. Last month, that collection was released as a 1,072-page hardcover anthology: The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City. It holds 375 poems by 264 poets, translated from 20 languages. Readers can explore the very different Mumbais of the Jewish playwright and art critic Nissim Ezekiel and the Dalit activist Namdeo Dhasal. They can lament the loss of Shahjahanabad with the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar. Revisit the colonial-era Delhi of Sarojini Naidu, the Haridwar of Manjul Bajaj, or discover a tiny microcosm of India in Thangjam Ibopishak's Imphal. 'My hope is that as you travel through these poems,' writes Moin in the introduction, 'you will discover that within the magic, malice and masala of urban India, every city-dweller becomes, in their own way, a poet.' Centuries of verse 'on a scrap of dried out / soil under a dried up tree / a deer stands in the very centre of New Delhi…' the Polish poet Katarzyna Zechenter writes, in A Nilgai Deer in the City of Delhi. As his homesick search took him all over, picking what to include in the book, and deciding where to stop, was a huge challenge, Moin says. 'Penguin,' he adds, laughing, 'neglected to give me an upper limit for the number of poems I could include, and I took advantage of that and trawled as far and wide — geographically, linguistically and temporally — as possible.' The oldest poem in the collection is Pataliputra, an ode to that ancient Mauryan capital (and ancestor to modern-day Patna), written by Tamil Sangam poet Mosi Keeranar, sometime between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. 'May all of Pataliputra, swimming in gold, / where white-tusked elephants splash about / in the Sona River, be yours…' he writes. One of the most recent is Imphal as a Pond, by the 22-year-old queer activist Mesak Takhelmayum: 'My family is like the archipelago at Loktak, / if not the chains of islands in the great ocean far beyond these mountains, / in our separation, we yearn for one another / we yearn for water to connect us.' Jungle of people... Once he had a longlist ready, Moin spent weeks sending out hundreds of emails to poets and publishers, trying to work out how to get permission to feature each piece. 'I've featured writers who maybe had one or two poems published 15 years ago, and then seemingly never published again,' he says. 'So I had to send a lot of Facebook messages to people with similar names, saying 'Hi you don't know me, but are you this poet?'' He was determined that each poem be presented at its best, so he dug through multiple translations, and consulted with linguists, scholars or simply friends and acquaintances, to identify the best or most accurate recreations in English. There was a lot of debate over which translation of Tagore's two poems, Song of the City and The Flute, to choose. For the former, he chose the translation by William Radice: 'O city, city, jungle of people, / Road after road, buildings innumerable, / Everything buyable, everything saleable, / Uproar, hubbub, noise.' In loving memory As he read his way through centuries of verse, Moin says, he noticed something that thrilled him: over and over, certain cities inspired the same sentiment. Whether this was an effect of culture, literary mirroring or an idea that took root and spread, tracing these threads through time felt extraordinary, he says. Kolkata's poets tend to look at the city as a harsh mistress, their unrequited love for her both romantic and torturous. Mumbai poets struggle to come to terms with their city's glaring inequalities, and write of the difficulties of surviving in this maximal metropolis. As for Delhi, 'it doesn't matter if you're reading poetry from the 14th century or the 21st,' Moin says. 'The theme is always that this was once a great city, but it no longer is. And that one loves Delhi for its past.' 'A lot of fantastic gay poets, such as Hoshang Merchant and R Raj Rao, are featured in this collection,' Moin adds. 'It's interesting to see, through their eyes, how the city enables the marginalised to express themselves, while on the other hand still stifling them.' There are poets in these pages who are also activists and fighters, soldiers and sages, memory-keepers looking to record a city's present, its culture and its people, its quirks and flaws, before it is all erased and redrawn. But most poets in the anthology, Moin points out, are none of these things. They are simply the 'loafers' of Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's imagination, drifting carefree through gardens, temples and lanes, finding ways to turn the minutiae of the everyday into art. As Nirupama Dutt puts it, in Laughing Sorrow: 'I will go to the poet of the city, / looking for life without restraint. / He will have half a bottle of rum / in one pocket and a freshly / written poem in the other.' Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
Sky News AU
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
Prosecco is bargain-basement gold for Aussies craving alternative to pricey champagne, even if it's geared for lowly 'commoners' like us
There is no polite way to say this: If you drink prosecco you are common. It may sound snobbish to say so, but if you drink prosecco instead of champagne it is a sure sign you are low class. So says William Hanson, a British authority of etiquette. It makes no difference to Mr Hanson that more than 700 million bottles of prosecco are sold every year and that it is the bargain-basement alternative to champagne. Mr Hanson seems to care not that prosecco also adds the frothy pop charm to the Aperol spritz, the world's most ubiquitous cocktail. In Mr Hanson's eyes, I must be a low-class vulgarian because I rather enjoy a good prosecco, especially with a fiery Indian curry. It's palate cleansing, and the sweetness cuts through the spice. Mr Hanson is the author of the bestselling Just Good Manners (Penguin) described as the quintessential guide to etiquette. He lists other tell-tale signs that you are common. He dislikes large, wall-mounted televisions he says intrude on family life. He loathes hot tubs, disapproves of liquid soap and frowns on ill-bred commoners who put on make-up in public and hold their knives like pens. Mr Hanson sounds to me like those entitled, yet delightful high society English chaps from 'Brideshead Revisited' who dash around Chelsea and Knightsbridge saying 'righty-o'. And he is certainly on the money with his views on hot tubs and giant TVs, is he not? Mercifully, he grudgingly approves of prosecco being served at Italian-themed dinners 'because that's Italian champagne'. 'But if you really want champagne but you either can't afford it or there isn't any, that's when choosing prosecco becomes common,' he adds. Prosecco is made from the glera grape native to the Veneto region in northeastern Italy. And even there it is surrounded by a little snobbishness from the Italians themselves. Those with a more refined palate insist on posh 'prosecco superiore' bubbles. You can recognise them by the labels with the words Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG. The Conegliano Valdobbiadene region's DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) stamp is an assurance of quality. It is the highest rating any wine appellation can get from Italy's Ministry of Agriculture. Producers have to run the gauntlet through a panel of experts to qualify. Most 'prosecco superiore' grapes are grown in vineyards on such steep slopes so that it is too dangerous for mechanical harvesters. So the grapes are picked by hand and carried uphill in buckets on a pulley system. The Aperol spritz, meanwhile, is under siege in New York where bartenders are reportedly replacing the Aperol with Campari, its slightly bitter cousin. The traditional Italian palate cleanser sgroppino is also rocketing up the cocktail hit parade. Sgroppino (pronounced cro-PEEN-yoe) may be served as a cocktail or a slushy dessert. It is a boozy frozen treat made with lemon sorbet, prosecco and vodka. It was traditionally an after-dinner drink but is now served at brunch (heaven forbid!) alongside croissants and sweet tarts. And if you don't have prosecco you can also make it with sparkling wine. Add an orange wedge for a garnish. Or try The Americano, a bitter, low alcohol spritz described as a classic riff on the Milano-Torino cocktail. The Times reports it is a mix of simple mix of Campari (from Milan) and sweet vermouth (from Turin) created by Gaspare Campari at his Caffè Campari in the 1860s. 'When soda water was added, it became a hit among American tourists, hence the name.' For a boozier version, add a nip of gin.
Geek Dad
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Dad
Review – Batman: Detective Comics #1098
Batman: Detective Comics #1098 cover, via DC Comics. Ray: The secret society of Elixir has been running amok in Gotham – and they don't like their power challenged. Last issue saw Harvey Bullock investigating a series of murders by the immortality cult – but as soon as he got too close, he was hooded, thrown in a van, and is currently on his way to Polkolistan. Batman wastes no time chasing after his PI frenemy, but when he crashes the convoy, he doesn't find Bullock at all – he finds the Penguin, also kidnapped from Gotham by the same villains for not liking them horning in on his territory. This leads to a forced team-up between the two sworn enemies – not far off from Penguin regaining his power in Tom King's solo comic. It's very clear they don't like each other, but Batman isn't willing to leave someone behind and Penguin is willing to take any help he can get to escape a foreign torture den. Frenemies. Via DC Comics. As for Harvey Bullock, he's not in the initial convoy – he's already been taken to Elixir's inner sanctum, where a sadistic doctor is convinced he can make him talk. Bullock is always a fun character to follow – he's so stubborn he doesn't know what's good for him, but his blue-collar aesthetic means he can take self-confident villains by surprise at times. Eventually, the odd trio reunites and Batman has to figure out how he can get these two bickering idiots out of Pokolistan alive. The issue is overall a lot of fun, although it's 90% action and moves very fast. What makes it work is the trio of oil-and-water personalities who dominate it – and the story isn't done yet, with a tense cliffhanger. I'm wondering if the themes of immortality that have dominated this run so far are leading to pulling in the DCU's most famous immortal supervillain – who has obviously tangled with Batman many times before. To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week. GeekDad received this comic for review purposes. Liked it? Take a second to support GeekDad and GeekMom on Patreon!
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Death never takes a holiday but you do: 10 best crime books for summer
Ambrose Parry, Canongate, £18.99, Canongate, out now Writers Chris Brookmyre and Dr Marisa Haetzman (Image: Getty Images) Why has STV or BBC Scotland not given us a small screen version of Parry's Raven and Fisher Victorian murder mysteries? Budget - or the lack of it - is, presumably, the boring answer. But this splendid series, now drawing to a close, is tailor-made for a TV adaptation. Set in Edinburgh's medical community in the mid-1800s, this is the fifth and final volume in a series of wonderfully crafted entertainments by husband-and-wife duo Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman, operating under the Ambrose Parry nom de plume. Victorian virtues turn out to be anything but in this gripping story which takes in photography, pornography and people trafficking. White City Dominic Nolan, Headline, £10.99, July 3 Out in paperback at the start of July, this is crime fiction as historical epic. Inspired by a real-life event - the Eastcastle Street robbery of a Post Office van in London in 1952 - this sweeping novel takes the temperature of the capital in the post-war years, culminating in the Notting Hill riots at the end of the decade. More James Ellroy than Agatha Christie, it's bleak, brutal and often thrilling. It's about cops and robbers - and how close both those sides can be - as well as postwar housing, Rachmanism (Peter Rachman is one of just a number of real-life people who appear in its pages; see also Lady Docker), racism and politics at the margins. Both vivid and visceral, it's a rewarding reminder of just how ambitious crime fiction can be. The Good Liar, Denise Mina, Harvill Secker, £16.99, July 31 Oh, this is also very good. Published at the end of July, Denise Mina's new book is a reminder of just how potent a writer the Glasgow author is. The Good Liar is a standalone novel that is embedded in the worlds of forensic science and the law. Doctor Claudia O'Shiel is a blood spatter expert who becomes involved in the investigation of a brutal double murder in an opulent London townhouse. The chief suspect is a Viscount who's never out of the papers. What follows is a novel about grief (O'Shiel has recently lost her husband), the seductive nature of the British establishment and moral compromise. It's sharp, clear-eyed and clever. Rum Punch, Elmore Leonard, Penguin, £9.99, out now 'Sunday morning, Ordell took Louis to watch the white-power demonstration in downtown Palm Beach. ''Young skinhead Nazis,' Ordell said, 'Look, even little Nazi girls marching down Worth Avenue. You believe it?'' Rum Punch, Elmore Leonard (Image: Penguin) Ah, I'd forgotten what a joy it was to read Elmore Leonard. Since the author's death in 2013 he has slightly slipped out of the public eye, but Penguin has now added him to its Modern Classics Crime and Espionage series. The first three of 14 books - Rum Punch, The Switch and Swag - are out now and they're essential reading. Rum Punch is the source material for Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown, which is fine and all, but the original is better. Leonard is one of the great prose stylists of the late 20th century. And these handsomely designed reissues are a wonderful excuse to become reacquainted with one of crime fiction's true originals. The Cut Richard Armitage, Faber, £18.99, August 28 Richard Armitage (Image: PA) Actor Richard Armitage (The Hobbit, Captain America) made something of a splash with his debut thriller Geneva in 2023. This follow-up is a tricksy, time-switching story about High School rivalries and a teenage murder, jumping between then (the 1990s) and now. At times the result pushes hard against the border of believability, but you do keep reading to find out what really happened in the past and what's going to happen in the present. The Man Who Died Seven Times, Yashuhiko Nishizawa, Pushkin Vertigo, £14.99, August 14 More tricksy, time-switching entertainment. On steroids. In fact Yasuhiko Nishizawa's crime novel - translated by Jesse Kirkwood - qualifies for that Doctor Who description, 'wibbly wobbly timey-wimey'. The man in the title is Hisataro's grandfather. He's dead on the first page and then comes back to life a few pages later. That's because for some reason his grandson regularly relives certain days over and over. And so when his grandad is killed - yes, it's murder - he decides to try and change the course of events. But it proves more difficult than he imagines. This is puzzle fiction for want of a better description. It has no other purpose than to entertain. It succeeds at that. Like a Bullet Andrew Cartmel, Titan Books,£9.99, July 8 Like a Bullet by Andrew Cartmel (Image: Titan Books) This year has been a bumper one for Andrew Cartmel fans. There's already been a new Vinyl Detective book - Underscore, the eighth in this hugely entertaining series. And next month sees the third in his Paperback Sleuth series in which our morally ambivalent heroine Cordelia Stanmer tracks down rare paperbacks and somehow becomes embroiled in the odd spot of murder as a result. In her latest adventure she is tasked with finding copies of a pulp wartime series originally published in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In fine condition, it goes without saying. (Not mint condition. That's for coins, stamps, comics and records.) In doing so she meets dodgy brothers, one-armed ex-military men and an author with a taste for Bettie Page and bondage. It's a brisk amuse-bouche of a book, one that wears its learning lightly. Very moreish. The Diary of Lies, Philip Miller, Polygon, £9.99, August 7 The third Shona Sandison thriller is full of spies, conspiracies, government secrets, the newspaper industry and, inevitably, murder. Plenty, then, for our journalist heroine to get her teeth into. Miller, formerly arts correspondent of this parish, has proven himself a very able crime writer in recent years. Among the many admirers of his last novel, The Hollow Tree, was David Peace, author of the Red Riding Quartet, and The Damned United no less. Murder Takes a Vacation, Laura Lippman, Faber, £9.99, August 14 Mrs Blossom is, as the title implies, going on holiday. A cruise down the Seine. Quite something given that she has never left the United States before. It's just a pity that there has to be a murder at the start of it. Veteran crime writer Laura Lippman has taken a minor character from her Tess Monaghan series and placed her front and centre in this cosy crime story. It works perfectly well enough as such, but, really, what makes this essential is that at heart it is a nuanced and clever character study of a flawed, decent woman in her sixties coming to terms with grief and a growing sense of adventure. Mrs Blossom is a delight to spend time with. Oh, and by the way, you may well come away from this with a newfound interest in the abstract artist Joan Mitchell and the ceramics of American industrial designer Russel Wright. A Particularly Nasty Case, Adam Kay, Orion, £16.99, August 28 Not out until the end of August, former doctor Adam Kay has - as his publisher points out - 'decided to stop writing about saving people's lives and start killing them off instead.' Everyone from Russell T Davies to the aforementioned Chris Brookmyre and Joanna Lumley are raving about this development. Chapter 26 is entitled 'Autopsy-turvy'. How you respond to that may tell you whether you'll like it or not. (It made me smirk.)
Politico
3 days ago
- Business
- Politico
Ketanji Brown Jackson has earned nearly $3M from her memoir, financial disclosures show
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has joined the ranks of the Supreme Court's most highly-paid authors by collecting a book advance totaling almost $3 million for her memoir, according to a financial disclosure released Tuesday. Jackson reported receiving $2 million of the advance last year for the book, on top of about $900,000 she was paid in 2023 by publisher Penguin Random House. The book, 'Lovely One,' reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list after its release last September. The amount paid to the court's newest justice is roughly the same figure Justice Sonia Sotomayor received as an advance for her 2014 autobiography, 'My Beloved World.' Her disclosure released Tuesday reports that she received about $132,000 last year from Penguin Random House for her past books and a forthcoming one. Sotomayor has earned a total of $3.9 million in advances and royalties from her books, according to Fix the Court, a watchdog group that analyzes the justices' annual financial disclosures. That's the highest book-related income of any current justice. Three other justices have earned more than $1 million in income from books they have written, according to Fix the Court's analysis: Jackson at $2.9 million, Clarence Thomas at $1.5 million and Neil Gorsuch at $1.4 million. Gorsuch reported in his new disclosure Tuesday a $250,000 advance last year from publisher HarperCollins for a book he co-authored about overregulation, 'Over Ruled.' Justice Amy Coney Barrett is also writing a book, due out in September, titled 'Listening to the Law,' and published by an imprint of Penguin. She received a $425,000 advance for it in 2021. Justice Samuel Alito was the only justice whose required financial disclosure was not released Tuesday. Alito delayed filing his report, as he has done each year for the past decade. Alito requested a 90-day extension, a spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said Tuesday as the reports from the eight other active justices and two retired justices were made public. The book-related payments to the justices have sometimes complicated their judicial work. Sotomayor has faced criticism in the past for not recusing herself from cases involving Penguin Random House. But last month, Sotomayor did recuse herself from considering a petition for the court to take up a case that involved Penguin's parent company, Bertelsmann. Four other justices also recused themselves, with most of those recusals likely triggered by the justices' book deals, though none of the justices explained why they were stepping aside. The result was that the court lacked a quorum, so a lower court's ruling in the case was automatically left in place. The lower court had dismissed a lawsuit against the company and various other publishers and authors. The justices' book deals may prompt more recusals in the coming months in higher-profile cases. Penguin is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed in 2023 against Florida officials over their efforts to restrict the availability of books in public school libraries. The justices' financial disclosures have faced scrutiny in recent years after revelations about undeclared gifts that some of the justices received, as well as expensive trips that were provided to Thomas and Alito by billionaire friends. The justices are required to disclose gifts valued at more than $480. This year, only Sotomayor disclosed any gifts. She said she accepted a $1,437 trip to Kansas City, Missouri, last August from a theater company there that was workshopping an adaptation of her diversity-themed children's book, 'Just Ask!' Sotomayor also said she received a gift of legal treatises that she donated to the Supreme Court's collection. Of the eight justices whose disclosures were released Tuesday, seven of them reported taking trips last year that were paid for by others. Only Thomas did not report any travel reimbursements. Jackson appeared to receive the most travel reimbursements. She reported 17 trips, all within the U.S. Most were part of her book tour and paid for by her publisher. Sotomayor spent 12 days in Europe last July at the expense of New York University and the University of Zurich in connection with speaking at events hosted by those schools. She also reported swapping a ticket she had bought for an unspecified concert last July for another less valuable one that offered 'greater security than the original seating.' Chief Justice John Roberts reported being reimbursed for his travel expenses to teach a two-week course in Galway, Ireland, last July sponsored by the New England School of Law called 'The Supreme Court of the United States in Historical Perspective.' The class was co-taught by Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus, who was Roberts' roommate when both attended Harvard Law. Roberts and several other justices reported receiving compensation for teaching classes. Roberts also reported a one-eighth interest in a cottage in County Limerick, Ireland, that he reportedly owns along with other family members. It isn't much of a money-maker. He reported taking in less than $1,000 in rent for it in 2024 and valued his share at less than $15,000. The released financial disclosures don't capture the justices' full wealth, because assets like homes, federal government retirement accounts and treasury securities don't need to be disclosed. However, the financial picture the forms do provide suggest Justice Brett Kavanaugh has the smallest investment portfolio. Kavanaugh reported as his only investments bank accounts worth in total between $100,000 and $250,000 and a Texas retirement account worth less than $15,000 that likely belongs to his wife, who was an aide to George W. Bush when he served as Texas governor. Most of the justices will make $303,600 in salary this year. Roberts, as the chief, gets a bit more: $317,500.
