Publishers Lunch
In a letter
to the editor, Philip
Roth takes issue with Dwight
Garner repeating "a claim about the author would have
seemed to me unlikely enough on its surface not to bear gratuitous repeating in
The Times." In Garner's review of Adam Begley's Updike biography, he wrote
that: "Claire Bloom, after her divorce from Philip Roth, said Updike's
negative review of Mr. Roth's 'Operation Shylock' so distressed Mr. Roth that he
checked himself into a psychiatric hospital." Roth does not simply deny
the post-divorce allegation; he gives an account of his days and months
following Updike's March 15, 1993 review -- starting with his 60th birthday
celebration on March 19, followed by documented teaching at Hunter College,
public readings, and acceptance of an honorary degree from Amherst.
(Nonetheless, the Times quips in its head, "Philip Roth, Still Writing
(Letters, at Least)."
Further to our story
from earlier in the week, a real estate agent handling the listing for the
space currently occupied by Shakespeare
& Co. on lower Broadway in New York near NYU confirms
that "their lease has expired and they're staying on briefly until the
landlord acquires a new tenant. The fact of the matter is that along with many
bookstores, they are having trouble paying rents that were affordable 10 years
ago when they signed these leases."
Also, New York's Landmarks Preservation
Commission has determined
that the interior of the Rizzoli
Bookstore on 57th Street does not qualify for protection. (They
found that little of the building's interior from 1919 remained intact.) The
store was set to close today regardless of the decision.
Novelist Sue Townsend, 68, died
at home on Thursday following a short illness. She lost her sight to long-term
diabetes (she dictated her more recent books), and suffered a stroke in late
2012. Townsend is best known for her Adrian
Mole series. Penguin Random UK ceo Tom Weldon called her "one in
a handful of this country's great comic writers."
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