75 years of painting the town read The journalist Richard Rovere once said of Harold Ross, the founding editor of the New Yorker magazine, that his fundamental contribution to journalism was his fight for the dignity of the printed word.

Read in the context of our own day, when the relentless trivialization of journalism has the dignity of the printed word pretty much down for the count, Rovere’s statement rings with bitter piquancy. All the more so when you consider that the fight wasn’t nearly so desperate in Ross’s time: that brief window when an erudite little Ôcomic paper,’ as Thomas Kunkel said in his biography of Ross five years ago, could be a major cultural force in a way that is unthinkable now. That brief window has long been closed, which is one of the assessments made by Ben Yagoda in About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made (Scribner, $27.50, 0684816059), one of a small flurry of books being published to mark this month’s 75th anniversary of the magazine. I have a shelf of books about the New Yorker, from James Thurber’s The Years with Ross of 1958 to Ved Mehta’s paean to William Shawn, Ross’s successor, of 40 years later, and About Town is one I am happy to add to it. It is probably longer than it needs to be, but New Yorker fans eager to absorb every fact, and every opinion about every fact, of the magazine’s history will not find length a defect.

Most of the books on that shelf are biographies or autobiographies or reminiscences. Yagoda has produced something different: a critical and cultural history that looks at the magazine’s content, how it originated and how it evolved, and at the role the magazine has played in American cultural life for three-quarters of a century. His book is the first to be based in large part on the New Yorker archives recently made available by the New York Public Library, which are amazingly voluminous. Imagine coming across a 1949 letter written to the editors by a totally obscure 17-year-old named John Updike.

Like Kunkel and others who have written about the New Yorker, Yagoda gives chief credit for its success in its first two decades to that improbable genius, Ross, and his finicky concern for the clarity of the printed word. Ross’s genius also lay in choosing excellent founding writers and editors, particularly that triumvirate of Thurber, E.B White, and Katherine Angell (later White’s wife). Other blocks in the foundation, according to Yagoda, were that nebulous concept, sophistication ; the focus on New York; the concern with shifting class lines; and, perhaps most important, the cartoons and other art.

In great detail, About Town describes the development of such elements as the Profile and the New Yorker short story and how they have changed. As to the latter, there is somewhat of a paradox. Though Yagoda rightly points out that the magazine’s intense reluctance to stretch has restricted its short-story range, the cumulative effect is of an illustrious fiction record overall.

The author believes the magazine had its golden age in the decade preceding Pearl Harbor a time in its history when it was poised gracefully between the formless and sometimes brittle levity that came before and the unquestionably meritorious, occasionally splendid, but frequently solemn, ponderous, self-important, or dull magazine that stretched from the Second World War on up to the 1980s. He also sees another brief golden age in the 1970s, when it got over solemnizing about the Vietnam War.

So, though he doesn’t use Kunkel’s notion of a brief window of cultural influence that I cited above, Yagoda clearly agrees with it. Aside from a short epilogue taking the magazine up to the present, he ends the book proper in 1987, when Shawn was let go. With that act, the slowly closing window banged shut, and the magazine’s story as a unique and influential institution in our culture ended.

In the first 62 years of its existence, the New Yorker had two visionary editors and was a thing unto itself. In the last 13 it has had three interchangeable editors and grows ever more indistinguishable from Vanity Fair and the rest of that glossy, celebrity-hunting crowd. To those of us who remain fans it is still the best of the lot, but think what that says about how sorry the lot has become. To be fair, think what it says about cultures getting the institutions they deserve.

Roger K. Miller is a freelance writer in Wisconsin.

So much fiction has been published over the last few decades that any complete catalogue would be gargantuan. And given the tremendous amount of new writing, searching for the worthiest novels is a daunting task. Nevertheless, David Rubel has sifted through the annals of contemporary writing and produced The Reading List, a new reference book listing 110 of the most influential authors of contemporary literary fiction. “Because we didn’t want to sell you a book the size of the Yellow Pages, we had to pick and choose,” Rubel writes. To be included, an author must be alive and still writing, have published more than one book, and have written in more than a single genre. In addition, writers included have all received critical acclaim. No geographical limitations were set, so a wide array of countries are represented by authors like Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Kenzaburo Oe (Japan), and Amos Oz (Israel). In addition to a short biographical summary, the entry for each author includes a complete list of the author’s fiction in chronological order. Books that by consensus are an author’s best are starred, and excerpts from reviews are presented alongside those entries. At the end of each author’s section, Rubel recommends a group of authors of related substance or style. What makes The Reading List stand out from other dry reference tools is Rubel’s unpretentious, informal tone. In one biographical note, for example, he writes, “although his French-sounding name confuses some people, Louis de Bernieres is thoroughly British.” Be advised, however, that the present book makes no mention of Tom Clancy, Danielle Steele, or John Grisham. Those and other popular writers are either not sufficiently literary, or are associated too closely with a particular genre. But many other popular writers, like Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, and John Irving are listed. And with or without big name writers, Rubel’s list will keep any reader busy for quite a long time. Critics seldom agree about the value of new fiction, and by definition, contemporary writers have yet to stand the test of time. As Rubel notes in his introduction, few readers are likely to be interested in all of the authors presented here. By the same token, just as few readers will come away empty-handed. As a welcome reminder of the wealth of great authors now writing, The Reading List successfully whets the appetite for contemporary literary fiction. Reviewed by Jeremy Caplan.

Jill Ker Conway describes autobiography as “our favorite form of fiction.” A distinguished and best-selling autobiographer herself (The Road to Coorain and True North) as well as a scholar of the subject, she knows the genre well. In her stimulating and enlightening new book, When Memory Speaks: Reflections on Autobiography, she gives us historical perspective on the subject, emphasizing how gender, race, and societal attitudes have influenced what autobiographers write about themselves.

“For men,” she notes, “the overarching pattern for life comes from adaptations of the epic hero in classic antiquity. Life is an odyssey, a journey through many trials and tests, which the hero must surmount alone through courage, endurance, cunning and moral strength . . . His achievement comes about through his own agency . . .” With St. Augustine, the odyssey in time moved from the external world to the inner consciousness. Rousseau’s Confessions brought us a “secular hero creating himself,” the story “of the individual against society.” Classic antiquity was not helpful in the same way for women. “It was within the special enclave of religious life that the tradition of Western European women’s autobiography was first established, in narratives about the autobiographer’s relationship with God.” Therefore women did not discuss “the sense of agency and acting on one’s own behalf,” which continued in secular narratives.

Ker Conway considers the works of such well-known writers as Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Virginia Woolf, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. But many of her subjects are not as well known: Harriet Martineau, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Mabel Dodge Luhan. And in contrast to the writings of such male explorers as Richard Burton, David Livingstone, and Henry Morton Stanley, Ker Conway points out overlooked female accounts of “travels into territories every bit as dangerous” like those by Mary Kingsley and Gertrude Lowthian Bell.

Of particular interest are Ker Conway’s discussions of contemporary works such as Angela’s Ashes, The Liars’ Club, The Color of Water, All Over but the Shoutin’, The Shadow Man, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The author reminds us that we are all autobiographers, “but few of us give close attention to the forms and tropes of the culture through which we report ourselves to ourselves . . .” She emphasizes the importance of cultivating the power to confidently speak for ourselves out of our understanding of our own experience. She encourages us to find our own voices.

Reviewed by Roger Bishop.

The actress Rachel Roberts wrote in her memoirs that everybody has a story and a scream. The Italian novelist Cesare Pavese said, No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide. Both Roberts and Pavese killed themselves.

What Mark Seinfelt has done in his new study is to give us the stories, the screams, and, inasmuch as they can be determined, the reasons for suicide of 50 celebrated writers of the past 100 years. Defining his parameters, Seinfelt notes that suicide was a rare phenomenon among writers and artists before 1900. In Greek and Roman times, when self-murder was often viewed as a noble way to defy persecution or stand up for one’s principles, such figures as Socrates, Cato, and Seneca chose suicide as a virtual affirmation. But in our century, only a few ideologues have deliberately sacrificed themselves to a cause, a protest, or a dogma. In the literary world, Yukio Mishima is perhaps the most striking example of such martyrdom.

Sometimes it seems that once Freud unlocked the subconscious and he had several writers as analysands a Pandora’s box of suicidal impulses was opened among the literati. Chronic depression, madness, alcoholism, drug addiction, existential despair, inconsolable feelings of worthlessnessÐall these things had plagued writers in earlier epochs. Yet suicide, once considered the gravest sin, was usually held at bay. Only in a century of unprecedented martial slaughter, nuclear holocaust, and genocide has it become a near-commonplace of intellectual life. For the Dadaists (whom Seinfelt does not address), it was the only act that made sense in a world in which reason played no part. It is not Seinfelt’s intention to illustrate theories or put the suicides he recounts into an overarching historical/psychological paradigm. His approach is that of the mini-biographer, with each writer’s life story discretely sketched, his or her career outlined, and the events leading up to suicide summarized. The chapters, one per writer, are often meager on analysis but are satisfyingly generous on vital detail. About a few of the most famous authors, such as Hemingway and Virginia Woolf, Seinfelt is both short-sighted and uninspired. But with writers less read, like Hart Crane (the subject of his longest chapter) or Stefan Zweig, he performs a more valuable service than merely rendering a downward spiral: He makes you want to read their work.

Final Drafts is an intriguing bedside-table book, better for dipping into than for reading at a stretch. The stories are necessarily grim and disturbing, but the subjects rarely fail to fascinate.

Randall Curb writes for The Oxford American, Southern Review, and American Scholar.

Although some may lament the decline of handwritten letters, many people are writing more than ever, whether it is e-mail, reports, newsletters, memoirs, or family histories. Writing programs continue to cite increases in enrollment. Patricia O’Conner, former editor at the New York Times Book Review and author of the successful writing book Woe is I, offers readers a new guide to writing entitled Words Fail Me. Designed to ensure that our words do justice to our ideas, O’Conner’s book provides practical advice on how to improve our everyday writing. Words Fail Me is divided into short chapters that offer witty and detailed solutions to a range of issues such as verbs that zing and the Ôit’ parade. O’Conner also tackles issues writing professors repeat every semester to their students: know your subject, know your audience, and know your position. No one, O’Conner reminds us, can avoid having to organize one’s writing. She also discusses the difficult subject of jargon, words that many feel they have to use in their company’s memo. (The comic strip Dilbert masters these.) She warns that jargon is often too complicated and sounds contrived. While the majority of the book focuses on writing style, O’Conner also confronts the one issue many fear: grammar. She explains grammar rules in a short, concise manner with humorous anecdotes, making even passages on prepositions enjoyable. And if readers should forget all of her advice, she provides a check list at the end of the book.

Charlotte Pence is an English professor at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Banned authors or their books are usually attacked for their socially, politically, or religiously unacceptable ideas or speech. Perhaps it’s not by chance that we observe Banned Books Week in September. After all, it’s the time of the year when students (those we encourage to think for themselves) return to schools and colleges and review reading lists for the year’s writing projects. While many students will recognize Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Lolita as banned material, they may be shocked to see Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass on the list as well. 100 Banned Books discusses the censorship histories of books both past and present and this is only the short list. Banning, as it turns out, is an old and established way of . . . well, keeping the lid on. The first list of forbidden books was probably compiled during the fifth century by the pope. The Vatican, however, didn’t abolish it until 1966, after running up a grand total of 4,126 books. The irony is that The Bible still ranks as one of the most censored books in history, yet it’s translated more times and into more languages than any other book and has outsold every book in the history of publishing. Another study in irony is popular sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a believable tale of a futuristic society in which all books are banned. It’s also on the list. 100 Banned Books clears up the fog about what’s been banned, when, where, and why. But it has more than court cases and public opinion. The book allows readers a bird’s-eye view of the values and opinions that this and other societies have held over the centuries with respect to politics, religion, sex, and social mores. Each listing begins with a brief summary of the book, followed by its censorship history, and a generous listing of newspaper, newsletter, magazine, and journal articles for Further Readings. The book provides a panoramic view of the full scope of book banning.

Pat Regel is a frequent reviewer for BookPage.

The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed Murder, madness, glamour, and greed. Yep, I’d say that pretty well covers it.

“One of the first status labels” to emerge after World War II, the Gucci luxury goods company, most noted for its shoes and bags, started with a small shop opened by Guccio Gucci in Florence, Italy, in 1921. Surviving an earlier cheap “drugstore image,” the international, multimillion-dollar business “was imprinted on the American mentality as top-of-the-line chic,” in the 1970s.

Behind the scenes, however (and often more publicly), the Gucci fortunes traced an erratic course that was probably predictable, the author points out, in light of the family’s “individualistic and haughty” Tuscan character: “arrogant, self-sufficient, and closed to outsiders.” Two of Guccio’s sons, Aldo and Rodolfo, alternately fought and made up, and the family tensions escalated into the third generation when their sons, particularly Paolo and the charismatic Maurizio, intensified the conflicts among and between generations.

Often endangered by hostile takeovers and damaging business and government run-ins, the Gucci firm recovered some of its old glitz in the late 1990s. By the turn of the century, under the guidance of a foreign investment firm, it has resolidified its business base and entered into a brilliant partnership with the Yves Saint Laurent label. Its edgier “power look” seems to promise great strides under new management, and more celebrity for the Gucci name.

So much for the glamour and greed. The madness, aside from typical excesses not uncommon in the high-fashion world, is linked to the murder of Maurizio in 1995. The person convicted of instigating the murder is behind bars, and was one of some 100 persons interviewed by Forden, the former Milan bureau chief for Women’s Wear Daily. The parade of hot shot lawyers and business experts is never-ending, and they all have their say, through Forden’s pen. The successive acts of the Gucci spectacle will keep the pages turning and readers anxious to turn to the newspapers for further news of this ongoing drama.

Maude McDaniel writes from Cumberland, Maryland.

Long live the letter The dirge for the demise of letter writing in the age of e-mail usually has an undertone of nostalgia for a certain literary mode the piercing love note, the minutely detailed, sunburnt vacation letter. Typically, published collections of letters play to this tune, reprinting the letters in uniform type, editing them for clarity and to literary effect. But what we really miss about letters is showcased beautifully in Illustrated Letters: Artists and Writers Correspond, which presents letters as visual and tactile artifacts. Reprinting facsimiles of letters from scores of French artists and writers, the book demonstrates that what makes letters wonderful is the expressiveness of all their elements the stationery, the handwriting, the ink. Each of the letters comes with an English translation and contextual notes, but even readers who don’t know French will want to linger over the reproductions of letters from Delacroix, Picasso, Baudelaire, and others.

Give ’til it hurts You’ve made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the month of July. Sigh . . . Guess where you’ll be spending your summer vacation? You need a little pick-me-up gift for yourself, under the circumstances. What gift doesn’t require a security deposit, seven-day advance purchase, or a Saturday night stay? Why, books, of course! Photographer Jeffrey Kraft’s exquisite photographs of Parisian cubbyholes and artifacts are not intended to entice one to visit the city; rather, his Literary Paris (Watson-Guptill, $18.95, 0823028305) is meant for those who have already been. The images are meant to inspire a memory from a time that has passed; this is not a fancy collection of tourists’ snapshots. Kraft has arranged his remembrances alongside excerpts from literary works by authors who stayed in Paris for extended periods of time. Kraft has captured the glimpse, the detail, the moment, rather than structures and sites. He offers an idea of what remains in the mind and heart, even years after the visit itself has ended. A wonderful gift for the Francophile in your life.

Ben Jonson said, He was not of an age, but for all time. He was, of course, speaking of his friend William Shakespeare. Children’s book author Aliki has written and illustrated William Shakespeare and the Globe, which describes not only Shakespeare’s life, work, and times, but even acknowledges visionary Sam Wannamaker, who spent years resurrecting the Globe. The book is designed much like a script, with acts and scenes and characters. An interesting add-on is the list of words and expressions, complete with illustrations, credited to Shakespeare; for example, sweets to the sweet and hush were apparently invented by the Bard himself. Seems we’ve been quoting Shakespeare without realizing it! Cities like Paris and London must make use of every tidbit of soil that can be found; as acreage diminishes in our growing world, green thumbs everywhere are striving to be more and more creative with their craft. Artisan has published Window Boxes: Indoors and Out ($27.50, 1579651240) with this in mind. Authors James Cramer and Dean Johnson offer fragrant, beautiful, and useful options for the, uh, land-challenged. Cramer and Johnson offer optional locations (who says a window-box is limited to being wooden, square, and outside?) and year-round planting options (a thriving garden in January?) With this book, the decision is no longer how to create a miniature garden, but rather how many miniature gardens you can create. Soil sold separately! Of course, if we’re talking land for land’s sake, Antarctica has land to spare. It’s been 85 years since Ernest Shackleton and the 27-member crew of the Endurance set out to cross the Antarctic on foot. Less than 100 miles from its destination, the Endurance was caught in an ice pack and was badly damaged. For over 20 months, the crew (along with 69 sled dogs) was marooned, but no lives were lost. Two books commemorate this remarkable true story of adventure and perseverance. First, there’s Knopf’s The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition ($29.95, 0375404031), a sophisticated account of the expedition. There’s also Ice Story: Shackleton’s Lost Expedition (Clarion, $18, 0395915244), which may be better-suited to younger explorers. Both books feature expedition photographer Frank Hurley’s photographs and offer a chronological summary of this death-defying journey. Hurley started the expedition with professional equipment, but his final shots were taken with a pocket camera. Endurance author Caroline Alexander, in association with the American Museum of Natural History, carefully researched this volume, complete with some of Hurley’s photographs that had not been published previously. Ice Story author Elizabeth Cody Kimmel presents the journey in storybook format, but the information is accurate and anecdotal. Both books would make great gifts for anyone who has a taste for adventure and hopeful endings.

Agnes and Curtis decide that the grown-ups need to take the children to the waterpark which happens to be 50 miles away for the day. Fifty miles can seem like 500 without Fun on the Run: Travel Games and Songs (Morrow Junior Books, $17, 0688146600). Brimming with silly stories, limericks, brain teasers, and songs, this book helps to fill travel time without batteries or messy cleanup. Familiar songs and games such as The Ants Go Marching and Hangman are included, but Fun on the Run contains nearly 125 pages of other games and songs that can be a part of any trip. If you still confuse Darth Vader with Darth Maul, fear not; Dorling Kindersley has published two books that will help you keep the prequel and the original trilogy straight: Star Wars Episode I: the Visual Dictionary ($19.95, 0789447010) and Star Wars Episode I: Incredible Cross Sections ($19.95, 078943962X). Like their predecessors (or would it be their descendants?), these books are designed to keep facts, characters, and plots straight. Archaeologist David West Reynolds, an obvious choice for the author, approaches this much like he did his previous Star Wars works. One feels as if he is on an archaeological dig or scientific study of another world. May the source be with you!

I first came across Joe Eszterhas in the early 1970s when the Baltimore Sun asked me to review his debut book, Charlie Simpson’s Apocalypse. It was a spellbinding book and I gave it a terrific review. Shortly after that, Eszterhas dropped off the literary landscape (except for a book about the Kent State killings and a novel) and surfaced in Hollywood where he began a career as a screenwriter. In the nearly 30 years since, he has written 17 original screenplays (and doctored countless others), including the blockbuster psychological thriller Basic Instinct, which made actress Sharon Stone an overnight star.

Just when I had given up hope of ever seeing another book from Eszterhas (why should he spend his time on a 400-page book for dubious financial reward when he can easily collect a million dollars-plus for a 100-page movie script?), along comes a 415-page monster of a book titled American Rhapsody.

I won’t keep you in suspense: It is the best book I have read in 10 years, maybe even longer. Using the research skills he learned as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine, the ear for dialogue and dramatic structure he learned writing movie scripts, and the sense of right and wrong he developed during the head-busting 1960s, he has written an epic analysis of the past decade (the Bill Clinton years, for those of you who have been out of the universe) that is every bit as perverse as it is brilliant.

Writing in the tradition of Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe, who sometimes blend fact with fiction and personal observation, Eszterhas has given us a look at the decade we thought we knew, but didn’t, if the truth be told. To his credit, he lets us know, by the use of bold typeface, whenever he delves into fiction and that is almost always to give voice to the “Twisted Little Man” who dwells deep inside his writer’s psyche.

Eszterhas’s irreverent take on the Clinton/ Monica scandal is shocking, mind-numbing and filled with explicit details that will make you squirm, as will his psychosexual explanation of Clinton’s behavior while in office. No one of importance from the past decade escapes scrutiny, and that includes James Carville, Hillary Clinton, Larry Flynt, and Sharon Stone, to name a few. Richard Nixon even makes a cameo appearance, along with his “Monica.” America has been lucky in that each decade has produced a writer who has been able to put his finger on the nation’s pulse. This time it is Joe Eszterhas.

James L. Dickerson is the author of numerous books, including Goin’ Back to Memphis and That’s Alright, Elvis, both recently re-issued in paperback.