The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.
Former Meet the Press host David Gregory is writing a book about his Jewish faith, Politico reported Thursday. "Let me emphasize that this book has always been intended as an exploration of an aspect of David's life that viewers rarely see in his journalistic work," Simon & Schuster's Jonathan Karp told Politico. "The book was never intended as a memoir about his career. That objective hasn't changed and will not change. This book will be about the inner spiritual journey many of us take in our lives." A publication date hasn't been announced yet.
"In later years, when Hemingway wasn't drinking with a gang of friends, he insisted on telling you not only that he was stronger and braver than you are, but that his wife was better than your wife." — Edward Mendelson writes about Ernest Hemingway's letters for The New York Review of Books.
The Toast provides some helpful tips for telling whether or not you are in a Balzac novel, including: "Your boyish charm and feminine hips have attracted the attention of a wealthy woman and/or a sinister homosexual criminal who will someday become the chief of police," and, "You play a lot of whist."
The New Inquiry looks at what emojis tell us about communication and capitalism: "Innocuous and omnipresent, emoji are the social lubricant smoothing the rough edges of our digital lives. ... In a broad sense, what emoji are trying to sell us, if not happiness, is a kind of quiescence."
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