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Jason Epstein's "Book Business": An Anodyne for Mr. Iannarelli
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Among several recent retiree reflections on the book trade, Jason
Epstein's compact (188 small pages) reminiscence and precis, _Book
Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future_ (New York: W.W. Norton,
2001), repays the reader most agreeably. [Epstein was editorial director
at Random House in its glory days, founded Anchor Books, and edited VN,
among other distinguished authors.]
In addition to sharing an insider's account of several of book
publishing's significant 20th-century upheavals, Epstein sensibly and
optimistically speculates on emergent models of technology, economics,
and culture in the book world. He sketches his friends (and the
occasional curmudgeonly bean-counter) with an amiable caricaturist's
deft strokes and tells pithy stories with canny economy. Glimpses of
Auden, Wilson, Cerf, Dreiser, and others are fresh and insightful,
particularly his sympathetic view of the generally under-appreciated
Horace Liveright. Epstein's spare narratives of the origins of Anchor
Books and the quality paperback, of the New York Review of Books, and of
Edmund Wilson's seminal role in the emergence of the New American
Library are lively and useful.
Nabokovians will particularly enjoy Chapter 3, "Lost Illusions," in
which Epstein offers several telling glimpses into the kaleidoscope of
Nabokov Recollected, including a ten-year- old Dmitri under an apple
tree with the minister's daughter and VN recording shoolgirl chatter on
a bus as research for _Lolita_, which Epstein was unable to persuade his
employers at Doubleday to publish: they were not, Epstein observes,
"ready for an amorous night at the Enchanted Hunters."
> PWS
Washington, D.C.
Among several recent retiree reflections on the book trade, Jason
Epstein's compact (188 small pages) reminiscence and precis, _Book
Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future_ (New York: W.W. Norton,
2001), repays the reader most agreeably. [Epstein was editorial director
at Random House in its glory days, founded Anchor Books, and edited VN,
among other distinguished authors.]
In addition to sharing an insider's account of several of book
publishing's significant 20th-century upheavals, Epstein sensibly and
optimistically speculates on emergent models of technology, economics,
and culture in the book world. He sketches his friends (and the
occasional curmudgeonly bean-counter) with an amiable caricaturist's
deft strokes and tells pithy stories with canny economy. Glimpses of
Auden, Wilson, Cerf, Dreiser, and others are fresh and insightful,
particularly his sympathetic view of the generally under-appreciated
Horace Liveright. Epstein's spare narratives of the origins of Anchor
Books and the quality paperback, of the New York Review of Books, and of
Edmund Wilson's seminal role in the emergence of the New American
Library are lively and useful.
Nabokovians will particularly enjoy Chapter 3, "Lost Illusions," in
which Epstein offers several telling glimpses into the kaleidoscope of
Nabokov Recollected, including a ten-year- old Dmitri under an apple
tree with the minister's daughter and VN recording shoolgirl chatter on
a bus as research for _Lolita_, which Epstein was unable to persuade his
employers at Doubleday to publish: they were not, Epstein observes,
"ready for an amorous night at the Enchanted Hunters."
> PWS
Washington, D.C.