“When Mr. Pearl founded the Perseus Books Group in 1996, publishers were ‘bailing out of serious fiction and nonfiction, saying they can’t make the mid-list pay,’ New York magazine said in a profile of Mr. Pearl. Mr. Pearl, who had long held a deep interest in books, decided to create a company of his own.”
Month: May 2012
DIebenkorn’s Family: We Warned Dealer About Fakes Almost Two Decades Ago Ago
In 1993, after Richard Diebenkorn died, his family went to Knoedler & Company to check out some drawings. “‘They didn’t look quite right, and we said, “The provenance is wacky and the story behind the provenance makes no sense,”‘ said Richard Grant, the artist’s son-in-law and the executive director of the Diebenkorn Foundation. “
The Future Of Books: Seriously Depressing Reading
“The suggestion is that iTunes song tasters, or viral videos, won’t generate a buzz for novels in the same way because you can’t really taste them in snatches. Cut-price deals or Twitter raves can presumably drive them up e-book best-seller lists, but if publishers die off, their sifting role – sorting out the literary chaff – will leave readers lost for real guides to the book market.”
British Museum May Have Found 400-Year-Old ‘Lost Colony’
“For centuries, the Tidewater coast of North Carolina has held one of early America’s oldest secrets: the fate of more than 100 English colonists who vanished from their island outpost in the late 1500s. … The shroud of mystery may finally be lifting.”
Idea: Let’s Honor The Late Beastie Boy With Better Copyright Laws
“Good law should reflect and support quality artistic culture — not oppress the people who create that culture. In 1998, Congress passed a hideous law to honor mediocre musician Sonny Bono. It should use MCA’s passing as an occasion to correct that mistake and honor a truly great musician instead.”
PEN/Faulkner Prize Goes To Julie Otsuka For The Buddha in the Attic
Otsuka’s “slim prose poem about Japanese picture brides coming to America after WWI beat out works by literary giants Russell Banks, Anita Desai, Don DeLillo and Steven Millhauser.”
Copyediting Mistake (On The Cellular Level) Led To Human Brain Power
“The incomplete copy of the gene seems to have showed up just as the extinct hominin Australopithecus made room for the genus Homo, which led to modern humans. That’s also when the brains of our ancestors began to expand and when dramatic changes in cognitive abilities are likely to have emerged.”
Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hires Yoonshin Song As New Concertmaster
“The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has hired violinist Yoonshin Song, a 30-year-old native of South Korea, as its new concertmaster. … Landing Song is a major artistic coup for the DSO as it rebuilds after last year’s debilitating strike.”
Outrage Over Turkey’s Seizing Control Of Istanbul Theatres
“Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week backed a move by Istanbul’s Islamist mayor to take over decision-making at Istanbul City Theaters, a theater troupe which is funded by the city and staged [a] play that outraged conservative critics. Erdogan also threatened to privatize state-run theaters — essentially cutting their funding — in response to resignations and protests by secular-minded artists against alleged political interference.”
A Q&A With Filmmaker Bess Kargman About First Position
“A lot of people come up to me and say I don’t like ballet, but I really loved your film, and that means so much to me. That means that I’ve exposed people to dance and showed the intimate lives of these dancers, even if they’re not obsessed with ballet.”