@petejohnsimon.bsky.social
Editor in Chief @ Liveright. Everywhere else: just some guy. wwnorton.com/liveright
Kurt’s a modest guy, so he’s burying the lede here:
“Mr. Beals’s shimmering version of this novel should become the standard for English readers.”
A more emphatic endorsement is hard to imagine!
Ordering info here: wwnorton.com/books/978132...
In two months pre-orders of The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald will be sent or picked up in stores, B&N, amazon, etc. The book launches October 7 at UM's Rackham Auditorium (tickets available next week), followed by a 15-state, 30-stop book tour. Hope to sign your copy!
08.08.2025 02:06 — 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Deal Report Category: Non-fiction: History July 18, 2025 AMERICAN COLONIALISM By Maggie Blackhawk Imprint: Liveright Professor of law at New York University and codirector of the NYU-Yale American Indian Sovereignty Project Maggie Blackhawk's AMERICAN COLONIALISM: A NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY, unearthing a largely overlooked history of how the United States became the nation it is today, with all of its triumphs and tribulations; exploring the development of key institutions—such as the bureaucracy, the Supreme Court, the presidency, and the concept of citizenship—through the unexamined lens of territorial expansion, dispossession, and colonization; and seeking to bridge the gap between constitutional history and the history of the American West, to Maria Goldverg at Liveright, in a good deal, at auction, for publication in September 2027, by Christopher Rogers at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner (world).
Some news, as they say. (I am especially looking forward to working with Maria Goldverg during this final stretch, who seems like an absolute gem.)
21.07.2025 14:32 — 👍 127 🔁 21 💬 11 📌 0
cover of "The Aeneid by Virgil", gold and dark blue, showing Roman image of wounded warrior Aeneas with his weeping son, Astyanax/ Iulus.
This beautiful new metrical verse translation of the Aeneid, by Scott McGill and Susannah Wright, with introduction by me, will be available in August. You can pre-order now!
17.05.2025 14:38 — 👍 494 🔁 63 💬 13 📌 8I am very excited about my current project: TRANSLATING THE ODYSSEY.
04.08.2025 21:43 — 👍 452 🔁 26 💬 18 📌 17My upcoming book, "The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald," just received a starred review (top 10%, they're only designation) from Kirkus Reviews, an 88-year old institution that's traditionally hard to impress. Comes out October 7. Can pre-order anywhere. (1/4)
21.07.2025 15:23 — 👍 11 🔁 2 💬 4 📌 0
We are delighted to announce that ‘Eurotrash’ by Christian Kracht, in the translation by @uni-hamburg.de Fellow 2024-2025 Daniel Bowles @bostoncollege.bsky.social has been longlisted for this year's @thebookerprizes.bsky.social !
bit.ly/3CYrLpo
"Reworking a classic is challenging, but, as Beals writes, the greater ordeal was 'to spend months with these young soldiers, in the trenches and in their heads, to know them intimately enough to give them new voices in a new language, and then to watch them die.'"
03.03.2025 15:46 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Congratulations to Christian Kracht and translator Daniel Bowles, whose novel EUROTRASH has been named to the #InternationalBooker2025 longlist!
Learn more about this probing masterpiece-in-miniature of self-reflection and cultural reckoning: wwnorton.com/books/978132...
Constance Grady posts a delightful short review of Mischa Berlinski's MONA ACTS OUT. Grateful for readers who really get what Mischa's done!
(Link in replies)
In stores today 🐶 — Named one of Apple Books' Best Books of January 2025, Mischa Berlinski's exuberant, funny new novel MONA ACTS OUT is "A great ride... with an extraordinary sense of the relation between theater and life" (Kirkus Reviews, starred)!
Learn more: wwnorton.com/books/978132...
On a Shakespeare-steeped comic novel for theater people, especially fans of “Trust Exercise”: Mischa Berlinski’s “Mona Acts Out.” 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/b...
21.01.2025 21:12 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0Really chuffed about this review, which, unlike the knee-jerk hated it / loved it Goodreads-binary that is our cultural norm, really engaged with Mischa's novel actively and substantively, and came away with a nuanced appreciation and critique of it.
22.01.2025 01:28 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
"Like Susan Choi in “Trust Exercise,” Berlinski has an intricate understanding of the dynamics of predation, the psyches of performers and the culture of theater, particularly the grittier, convention-trampling downtown variety." --Laura Collins-Hughes (@collinshughes.bsky.social)
22.01.2025 01:26 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0Kurt’s a modest guy, so he’s burying the lede here:
“Mr. Beals’s shimmering version of this novel should become the standard for English readers.”
A more emphatic endorsement is hard to imagine!
Ordering info here: wwnorton.com/books/978132...
I’ll be so eager to hear what you think!
16.01.2025 21:17 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0It’s funny throughout and by the end quite moving.
16.01.2025 20:23 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
"Rhapsodic and enlightening about Shakespeare, full of fun on every page, Mischa Berlinski’s “Mona Acts Out” is an early literary delight of 2025." --Marion Wink, Minneapolis Star Tribune
16.01.2025 20:17 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0
Mona Acts Out by Mischa Berlinski
Starred reviews from PW and Kirkus. I appreciate the Cleopatra-esque outfit. #collectiondevelopment amzn.to/49vNocv
09.12.2024 18:46 — 👍 9 🔁 2 💬 2 📌 1
I started a Substack, so that I can eventually convert some of my comments on translation from twitter to a different platform. I wrote an initial post about the 4 translations of the beginning of the Odyssey that have been circulated recently. open.substack.com/pub/emily613...
02.09.2024 15:24 — 👍 149 🔁 38 💬 8 📌 6
Video from the National Book Festival, featuring a beautiful recitation from the Qur'an:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDKW...
A tweet from "Librarian Mama": "Oh, you've never read The Odyssey???" Your timing is perfect. Emily Wilson's translation is the best one in literally ages, has that sweet iambic pentameter to give it a "bouncy" feel, & makes dudebros cry that the classic has "gone woke". 😁 Then a photo of Emily Wilson, whose arms have tattoos.
A reply Tweet by "Charles Bentley-Astor": "The Odyssey is in dactylic hexameter. Why would you "translate" it and render it in iambic pentameter (English metre)? To give the poem a sense of rhythm more intuitive to English speakers? No. To rob the "dudebros" of their one remaining piece of classical literature - the one story from which they can take inspiration and see their heritage. Vandalism for vandalism's sake."
Checking the Odyssey drama on Twitter, and it's amazing how these dudebro assholes PRETEND to know the classics, but really don't. The first two acclaimed translations of the Odyssey, Chapman (1616) and Pope (1726) are in iambic pentameter. Dactylic doesn't work in English...
28.12.2024 03:18 — 👍 21 🔁 2 💬 2 📌 0Congratulations to @maxboot.bsky.social, whose “elegant,” “landmark” biography of Ronald Reagan has just been selected as one of “The Ten Best Books of 2024”! nytimes.com/2024/12/03/boo…
@liveright.bsky.social
