In a letter that recently went on sale in England, Rudyard Kipling admits that he may have borrowed sections of his story collection The Jungle Book from forgotten sources. Dated 1895 and addressed only to “madam,” Kipling writes, “it is extremely possible that I have helped myself promiscuously but at present cannot remember from whose stories I have stolen.” Dealer Andrusier Autographs is selling the Kipling letter for about $3,700.
The city of London has begun its search for the first-ever Young Poet Laureate.
Next year, the National Book Critics Circle will add best debut book to its list of awards, which already includes fiction, general nonfiction, autobiography, biography, criticism and poetry. The new prize will be named for the late critic John Leonard, "remembered...for his life-long encouragement of younger critics and his unwavering attention to debut writers.”
Former Workman publisher and Hyperion founder Bob Miller is starting a new imprint under the auspices of MacMillan. The “standalone company,” which does not yet have a name, will launch in 2015 and start publishing three nonfiction titles a month.
A.O. Scott praises Margarethe von Trotta’s Hannah Arendt as an intellectual action movie: “in a manner not altogether dissimilar to the way Julie & Julia mastered the art of French cooking, Hannah Arendt conveys the glamour, charisma and difficulty of a certain kind of German thought... There is an undeniable nostalgic thrill in stepping into an era in New York when philosophers lived in apartments with Hudson River views, and smoking was permitted even in college lecture halls.” Hannah Arendt opens today at Film Forum.
Zach Mayer reads between the lines of fifty years of ads in the New York Review of Books; Flavorwirerounds up of the best annotations of classic books by famous writers.
