Tuesday Spill: Books Arrived This Month
It’s been a good month for books here at the Spill. The Barbara Shermund title, Tell Me A Story Where The Bad Girl Wins, started things off with a bang. It’s truly a must-have for any New Yorker cartoon collection.
Was pleased to get hold of The New Yorker bound volume, Jan – Feb 1977. I enjoy revisiting these issues that I devoured just prior to getting into the magazine in August of that year. I know that each and every drawing somehow helped me along, educated me, as I tried to figure out where I might go on paper (an ongoing thing, by the way — luckily, I still haven’t figured that part out).
I’m nearly all the way through John Updike’s Pennsylvania Interviews — wasn’t sure how a themed interview book would be, but it’s turned out to be a favorite. Included in the book are a handful of interviews Updike did with Terry Gross for Fresh Air.
So far, have only visited sections of The World She Edited: Katharine S. White At the New Yorker (which is not unusual — it’s how I read any book, save fiction). My wife, who has been listening to the book, reports in on what she’s heard, and then we discuss. I’ll eventually read the whole book, but not from cover-to-cover.
Am really enjoying occasional visits to William Maxwell’s The Writer As Illusionist: Uncollected and Unpublished Work. I’m a sucker for these kinds of books; the ones that seek out the obscure and/or forgotten work. This collection contains a gem: a Maxwell letter to writer, Alec Wilkinson describing his early days at The New Yorker (Mr. Wilkinson selected the work for this book, and wrote the intro. He also published a book, My Mentor, about his friendship and professional relationship with Maxwell).
In the background is the most recent purchase: Terry And The Pirates. I wrote about this on the Spill the other day. Very pleased to add it to the smallish Spill collection of non-New Yorker cartoon-related books.
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I’ll end today’s post with a non-book related (but New Yorker cartoonist related) photo I took the other day. I walked into the kitchen to find our cat, Mitty (named after James Thurber’s Walter Mitty) basking in sun, her tail curled around Gomez Addams.
I have a copy of "The Bedside Tales," (copyright 1945, with 50 cents penciled-in ) with an intro by Peter Arno. No pictures, but a "collection of tales" including many New Yorker contributors. Please tell me you already have a copy, because I'd be duty-bound to reluctantly send it to you, since you could put it to use better than I.