Melville House to Publish Torture Report, Pocket-Sized Books for WWII Soldiers, and More

by
Staff
12.11.14

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:

Independent publisher Melville House will publish the executive summary of The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture, which details the C.I.A.’s torture methods in its counter-terrorism efforts following the attacks on September 11, 2001. The report was made available online Tuesday, and Melville House will release the four-hundred-eighty-page book on December 30. Melville House founder Dennis Johnson states that the gruesome report is the “most important government document of our generation, even one of the most significant in the history of our democracy.” (New York Times)

“The paper that they were printed [on] was about the strength of newsprint. And so it was believed that each book would probably withstand about six readings before it would start to fall into pieces.” Guptill Manning talks to NPR about her new book When Books Went To War, which documents the history of the pocket-sized literary paperbacks sent to soldiers during World War II. 

At the Boston Review, Vivian Gornick discusses three books that “taken all together, constitute a report on the current state of the feminist union.” The books are Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, Deborah L. Rhode’s What Women Want: An Agenda for the Women’s Movement, and Feminism Unfinished, by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry.

“Marginalia are the original comments section,” writes Lauren Collins, whose New Yorker article profiles contemporary groups that aim to preserve marginalia in the age of e-readers.

A previously undiscovered letter written by author C. S. Lewis in 1945 will be auctioned off on December 18. The letter, addressed to the unknown “Mrs. Ellis,” was found in a secondhand book, and sees Lewis unpacking his concept of joy: “Real joy…jumps under ones ribs and tickles down one’s back and makes one forget meals and keeps one (delightedly) sleepless o’nights.” (Guardian)

“Realism is a literary convention—no more, no less—and is therefore as laden with artifice as any other literary convention.” At the London Review of Books, Tom McCarthy examines in detail the conventions and current debates centering on “the real,” “reality,” and “realism” in fiction.

Despite ongoing public efforts to save libraries in the United Kingdom, the annual survey from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy reveals a significant decline in not only the number of library branches in the UK, but also the number of site visits in the past few years. (Guardian)

Comments

C. S Lewis books were my

C. S Lewis books were my favorites growing up.  I was so excited when the movies came out and sparked an interest in my son, who has since read all of the Chronicles of Narnia.  Owning such an interesting piece of writing history is a real treasure.  Janelle www.janellefila.com