Tag
7 posts
What happens when The Ink Runs Dry? Fortunately, the House of SpeakEasy has a talking cure. We’re delighted to welcome Jonathan Alter, David Gilbert, Christopher Mason, Jay Parini and Amanda Vaill to City Winery for another Seriously Entertaining literary cabaret, taking in tortured geniuses, presidential candidates, messiahs and more. Read on, dear friends, to meet […]
Read MoreMartin Amis was doubled on Saturday night at the New School. He was appearing as part of the tenth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, established by his great friend Salman Rushdie, who had a front-row seat for the occasion. Stage left was the real Amis, head cocked and battle-ready; opposite him sat […]
Read MoreA state of emergency is declared. You fly tonight. What do you take with you? Clothes? Thermos? Hatchet? Naaah: books, of course. Fortunately you know of a safehouse nearby. A safehouse by the name of SpeakEasy. That’s right, comrades, there’s a Seriously Entertaining way out of this crisis. Between our six guests next week, we […]
Read MoreKate Mosse has been a major fixture on the British literary scene for two decades. In 1996 she established the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which has done great things for women writers around the world, including past winners Lionel Shriver, Marilynne Robinson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith. She is also a major novelist in her own […]
Read MoreIn a 2005 article for the Guardian entitled “The uses of invention”, Jay McInerney set out to counter the prevalent concern that literature was no longer up to the task, following 9/11, of processing world events. His contribution to the proof was The Good Life (2006), a novel set in the autumn of 2001 in the bedrooms of wealthy Manhattanites dealing […]
Read MoreJANE I think what they did to you was evil. PHILOMENA No I don’t like that word. MARTIN No — evil’s good. (They stare at him) Story wise. You can read Philomena: A Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, based on the book by Martin Sixsmith, on the Weinstein Company website here. As with most published screenplays, there are […]
Read MoreIn 1991 the New York Times marked the “earth-shattering news” that Pauline Kael was retiring by interviewing her. The great iconoclast of film criticism, whose put-downs made her unpopular with publicists but delighted readers of the New Yorker for more than twenty years, nevertheless found much to admire in the latest crop of Hollywood stars. She listed among her […]
Read More