April News and Highlights

Letter from Hudson Street April 2017 Dear Readers, We don't often call attention to our relationship with our sister company, but there's no ignoring the fact that the death of Robert B. Silvers, co-founding editor of [The New York Review of Books](, has left a void not only in the literary world but also in the office we share with the magazine. His presence is very much missed here, even by those of us who only had passing encounters with the man. His love for the written word and devotion to writers was an inspiration to many, including the employees of this press. Sincerely, The NYRB Staff Book to Film We thought we'd pull together some of our favorite movie posters for film adaptations of books in the NYRB Classics series. This is just the tip of the iceberg where such adaptations are concerned. [Agostino]( [Beware of Pity]( "Enchanted" April reading [The Enchanted April]( Speaking of film adaptations, did you know that Elizabeth von Arnim's 1922 novel [The Enchanted April]( is in the NYRB Classics series? It has been adapted for the screen twice, [once in 1935]( under Harry Beaumont's direction and again, more famously, [in 1992]( starring Miranda Richardson, Alfred Molina, and many others. Trailer below. [Enchanted April trailer]( Bookseller Recommendations, Part I We're lucky to count among our fans a collective of indie booksellers who, for the past several years, have served as our cheerleaders, our friends, and all-around inspirational people. A handful of these heroes have done us the honor of naming their favorite NYRB books and they've been so generous with their responses, that we're splitting the recs up into two parts. Hal H. [Community Bookstore](, Brooklyn [A High Wind in Jamaica]( [A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes]( Still my favorite NYRB Classic after years of reading them, A High Wind in Jamaica is a strange and subversive high-seas-neon-fever-dream of a novel, dashing a band of pirates and their kiddie captives against one lesson by book’s end: children can be evil, too. [Loving]( [Loving by Henry Green]( An upstairs-downstairs comedy about a house of servants left to their own devices, Loving delights with riotous detail: a peacock’s carcass that won’t stay put, a butler with a handful of fresh manure, an Irish groundsman with a brogue so thick the author can’t be bothered to write it. Henry Green’s masterpiece is essentially about nothing, and is some kind of proof that the road to Seinfeld runs through English modernism. Fernando F. [Malvern Books](, Austin, TX [The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm, edited by Phillip Lopate]( Beerbohm: the ultimate English dandy. His outlook on life has been very refreshing and uplifting in this post-election America. Beerbohm’s ability to capture the doom and hilarity in everyday people and the great figures of his time is beyond compare. We should all be a little more like Max. Jarrod A. [Greenlight Bookstore](, Brooklyn [Pierre Reverdy, edited by Mary Ann Caws]( Someone once said of Pierre Reverdy that he liked to write about small things, like the shadow of a pin on an apple. Indeed he did, but where's the light coming from that causes the shadow? What's the fate of the apple? A pivotal influence on Surrealists, Dadaists, the New York School, etc., Reverdy creates passages that open into the vast possibilities of other spaces that are never too far away from our own. Read slowly, near a window. [Invention of Morel]( [The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares]( This book blew me away when I first read it, and I still think it's about as close to perfect as a book can get. It reads as if Albert Camus and Jules Verne tried to write Robinson Crusoe and accidentally made it a love story. I am still haunted to this day by this gorgeous little novel. [Lolly Willowes]( [Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner]( An aging single lady decides to shirk spinster-ism and becomes a witch instead. Also, Warner writes like the disembodied spirits of Jane Bowles and Virginia Woolf colliding in a seance. What more could you ask for? A real gem. Happy Birthday, April NYRB Babies [Glenway Wescott]( [Glenway Wescott]( b. April 11, 1901 [Henry James]( [Henry James]( b. April 15, 1843 [Kingsley Amis]( [Kingsley Amis]( b. April 16, 1922 [Dorothy Baker]( [Dorothy Baker]( b. April 21, 1907 Poetry PSA April is National Poetry Month and if you're looking for ways to celebrate, poets.org has provided a[very helpful tool](for finding poetry events near you as well as a pretty poster to download and print out (drawn by [Maira Kalman](). You can also partake in [Poem in Your Pocket Day]( by choosing a poem to carry with you (and read) on April 27, which we think is a great idea. In fact, you could carry one of the pocket-sized collections from our [NYRB Poets]( series and have a whole book of poems at the ready. Just a thought. In the Press "The Alteration, Kingsley Amis’s quirky 1976 foray into counterfactual science fiction, is a masterpiece—and more timely than ever. It posits a world in which truth is trussed up, and sexual identities are policed with horrifying consequences." —Jason Guriel, [The Atlantic]( "The tone of the book itself...feels like one very long brunch conversation with your glamorous older cousin the afternoon following a party she snuck you into." —Larissa Pham, [The Paris Review Daily](, on Eve Babitz's Eve's Hollywood "The book is slim, personal, and bold...In Down Below, one takes the scenic route through the uncanny valley." —Justin Goodman, [Cleaver Magazine](, on Leonora Carrington's Down Below "Like Plath, Partridge, at her darkest, was blazingly vivid. Her poetry seemed made of magnifying glass, under which swam brilliant images and metaphors." —Jason Guriel, [Elle.com](, on Elise Partridge's The If Borderlands Events So, it's like this: we simply have too many events in the month of April to list here. Truly, you'd be scrolling and scrolling, so please hop on over to our [events page]( on our website, or directly to a few of the book pages where you'll find: Events with poet [Eugene Ostashevsky]( (The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi) in New York City, New Jersey, and Massachusetts NYC events with French graphic novelist [Blutch]( (Peplum) Events with [Sasha Abramsky]( ( The House of Twenty Thousand Books) in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Tampa, FL April Books [BLINDNESS]( [by H]([enry Green]( [LIVING]( [by H]([enry Green]( [PARTY GOING]( [b]([y Henry Green]( [MAKING IT]( by N[orman Podhoretz]( [DOWN BELOW]( [b]([y Leonora Carrington]( [FAMILY LEXICON by Natalia Ginzburg]( [THE H]([OUSE OF FOUR SEASONS]( by [Roger Duvoisin]( [THE]([FROG IN THE WELL]( by A[lvin Tresselt illustrated by Roger Duvoisin]( [Family Lexicon]( by Natalia Ginzburg is the April selection for the [NYRB Classics Book Club](. If you join the club by April 19, Family Lexicon will be your first selection. The Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World The Independent (Ireland) posted this video of some of the world's most breathtaking and beloved bookstores in honor of World Book Day on March 2nd, but we thought you all would enjoy—and ooh and ahh—any day of the year. [World's Coolest Bookstores]( Header image: 7th Avenue in the West Village, NYC, March 2017 New York Review Books 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014 [Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe](