“Today, he opened to the world,” she added. “To me, he opened 50 years ago.” Ms. von Furstenberg said “we never had to talk about our relationship, we lived our relationship,” including the last five years during which Mr. Diller was writing his memoir. “He’s been private all his life, but not with me,” she … Read more
The Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller is, by any measure, enormously successful. He’s produced (always in collaboration with others) about 10 shows that have, collectively, grossed $4.74 billion, approximately one-third of which was profit for producers, investors and others. You’ve probably heard of several of those shows. His first big hit was “Rent.” His most recent: … Read more
ETERNAL SUMMER, by Franziska Gänsler; translated by Imogen Taylor When Ivan Turgenev left Paris for Baden-Baden, the German spa town famed for its casinos, vineyards and salubrious air, he urged his friend Gustave Flaubert to come visit. “There are trees there such as I’ve seen nowhere else,” he wrote in an 1863 letter. “The atmosphere … Read more
A group of senior officials at the National Endowment for the Arts announced their resignations on Monday, days after the Trump administration began withdrawing grants from arts groups across the nation. Their departures, which come as the endowment has been withdrawing current grant offers and President Trump has proposed eliminating the agency altogether next year, … Read more
Nineteen books were recognized as winners or finalists for the Pulitzer Prize on Monday, in the categories of memoir, poetry, general nonfiction, fiction, biography and history, which had two winners. Fiction WinnerJames, by Percival Everett Everett’s reimagining of “Huckleberry Finn” is a subversive homage to Mark Twain’s classic novel, as narrated by the enslaved man … Read more
Jimmy Donaldson — better known to his hundreds of millions of online followers as MrBeast — has leveraged his vast social media audience to sell everything from Beast-branded burgers, snack packs and chocolate bars to water bottles, toys, basketballs and $65 hoodies. Now, he’s aiming to sell his followers an unlikely new product: a novel. … Read more
LITTLE BOSSES EVERYWHERE: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America, by Bridget Read So enduring is the image of America’s door-to-door salesman — beguiling, relentless — that it can be easy to forget that the junk he is selling is often less pernicious than the junk he’s being sold. Neighbors might resent his hawking microwaves and … Read more
THE DAZZLING PAGET SISTERS: The English Twins Who Captivated Literary Europe, by Ariane Bankes Move over, Véra. See ya, Zelda. Make way for Celia and Mamaine. The dazzling Paget sisters, as they’ve been rebranded by the U.S. edition of a book published in the United Kingdom as “The Quality of Love,” were identical twins, that … Read more
Alone as a child tucked in at night, Mary Annette Pember had visions. “Strings of lights, rather like phosphorescent snakes,” she writes, would float along the ceiling of her bedroom, turning and twisting in the dark. When she asked what the strange lights could be, her mother, an Ojibwe from northern Wisconsin, urged her not … Read more
From the outset, Black bookstores have been centers of not only cultural exchange and knowledge but also protest and liberation. When David Ruggles opened what is recognized as the first Black bookstore, in 1834, at 67 Lispenard Street in Lower Manhattan, he used his inventory of books, pamphlets and stationery — as well as the … Read more
