Last month, Max Larkin interviewed Fat City author Leonard Gardner on Radio Open Source. Their conversation covered the similarities between boxing and writing, what makes a boxer, and more. Of Fat City, Larkin says:

“There’s something special about Fat City… It’s a book about boxing on its surface, but it’s a book that seems to sum up a whole world of American literature before it. Steinbeck’s books of field work—Grapes of Wrath, In Dubious Battle—it seems to capture a little bit of Hemingway, and the Hemingway hero… It’s got a lot of noir to it, a lot of hard-boiled fatalistic California stories, but there's also a little anticipation of Rocky. It’s not about champion boxing, it’s just about boxing as a way to get out the drudgery of Stockton, California. About trying to be somebody."

Listen to the full interview here. 

We're pleased to announce that Sasha Abramsky's The House of Twenty Thousand Books has made the Longlist of the Jewish Quarterly’s Wingate Prize. The Wingate Prize is the only UK literary prize to honor a nonfiction or fiction book that "translates the idea of Jewishness to the general reader." The shortlist will be announced in February. For more information, visit the Jewish Quarterly's website. 

Abramsky's memoir of his extraordinary polymath grandfather also received an honorable mention from the judges of the Sophie Brody Medal, awarded by the Reference and Users Association, a division of the American Library Association. Read more on ALA's website. 

We are thrilled to announce that The New York Times Book Review chose Magda Szabó's novel, The Door, translated by Len Rix, as one of their picks for "The 10 Best Books of 2015." The editors wrote of the book, "this supple translation shows how a story about two women in 20th-century Hungary can resonate in a very different time and place. With a mix of dark humor and an almost uncanny sense of the absurd, [Szabó] traces the treacherous course of a country’s history, and the tragic course of a life." To see the full list, visit The New York Times Book Review website here.

The Wall Street Journal named Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories, published by The New York Review Children's Collection, one of the “Best Books to Give Children." Meghan Cox Gurden writes:

"Leon Garfield’s Shakespeare Stories brings together sophisticated retellings of 21 plays, aimed at readers 10 and older, that Garfield (1921-96) originally published in two volumes. In these lively and evocative pages a child will hear Shakespeare’s poetry set in prose that will lay the groundwork for many a future enchanted evening at the theater."

Learn more about the book here. The New York Review Children's Collection also publishes Smith: The Story of a a Pickpocket and The Complete Bostock and Harris by Leon Garfield. 

Please join us for events in New York with Leonard Gardner, author of Fat City. 

On Friday, November 20, at 7 p.m., Film Forum (209 W Houston St) will screen John Huston's 1972 film Fat City, adapted from Leonard Gardner's novel. The NYRB Classics edition of Fat City will be available at concession. After the film, Gardner will be in conversation with noir writer Eddie Muller about the novel, and there will be an audience Q&A. Fat City will screen at Film Forum through November 26th. 

Leonard Gardner will discuss his novel with writer and critic Gary Giddins as a part of McNally Jackson Live, the bookstore's new series. The event will take place on Tuesday, November 17, at 7 p.m., at the bookstore (52 Prince St) and will also include a conversation between The Nation's Ari Berman and The New Yorker's Jelani Cobb on the modern struggle for voting rights, as well as David Shields and Philip Lopate on Shields' War Is Beautiful.

Join NYRB Poets and La Maison Française NYU in celebrating the publication of Ron Padgett's translations of Guillaume Apollinaire's poems in Zone. Padgett will read selections from his translations and copies of the poetry collection will be available for sale.

When: Thursday, November 19, 7pm
Where: La Maison Française NYU, 16 Washington Mews, NYC

This event is free and open to the public.

Photo credit: John Sarsgard

NYRB is pleased to receive praise for Sasha Abramsky's The House of Twenty Thousand Books from Michael Dirda in The Washington Post. 

Dirda writes, "The House of Twenty Thousand Books lovingly recreates an intellectual milieu that was built around old books, chess games, Russian dominoes, Eastern European food, hot tea, family and long evenings spent in spirited political debate." 

Meet Sasha Abramsky at events in New York, Washington D.C., and Cambridge: 

Sunday, October 11, 12 pm, Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington DC
Monday, October 12, 7 pm, The Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway, NYC (In conversation with Robin Blackburn)
Tuesday, October 13, 7 pm, East Meadow Public Library, 1886 Front St, East Meadow, NY
Wednesday, October 14, 7 pm, Book Culture on Columbus, 450 Columbus Ave, NYC (In conversation with Samuel Freedman)
Thursday, October 15, 7 pm, Porter Square Books, 25 White St, Cambridge, MA (In conversation with Jeremy Solomons)

Join NYRB Classics in celebrating the publication of the first unexpurgated edition of Miron Białoszewski's A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising at these events featuring Madeline G. Levine, who extensively revised her 1970 translation of Białoszewski's book for this new edition.

Wednesday, November 11th, 5:30 pm - 7 pm
Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies, Toy Lounge, Dey Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Madeline G. Levine will discuss Białoszewski’s harrowing account of the Polish capital's rise against Nazi occupation in 1944 and her work translating the memoir with Ewa Wampuszyc, Assistant Professor of Polish Language and Literature in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages at UNC, Chapel Hill.

Thursday, November 12th, 7 pm
The Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth Street Durham, NC
Madeline G. Levine will read from and discuss her translation of Białoszewski’s memoir.

Monday, November 16th, 7 pm
WORD Bookstore, 126 Franklin St, Brooklyn, NY 11222, United States
Madeline G. Levine will be joined by writer and scholar Timothy Snyder (Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning) and fellow translator Alissa Valles to discuss Białoszewski’s autobiographical work, literary legacy, and the Warsaw Uprising. NYRB Classics editorial director Edwin Frank will moderate.
Co-sponsored by the Polish Cultural Institute New York