| Letter from New York CityMarch 2026Dear Readers,It's all about the authors this March. We have loads of events all month, from author readings to book clubs. Richard Hell continues his tour in support of Godlike on the West Coast; Brad Neely will be doing appearances in celebration of the publication of his new book Creased Comics, coming from New York Review Comics this month; and Nancy Lemann will make an appearance at The New Orleans Book Festival on the occasion of two upcoming publications by our imprints. Find out more information about these author appearances below, along with a fun excerpt from a new reissue and information about upcoming publications. Happy reading,The NYRB Staff "At Sylvia's": An Excerpt from Voices Frederic Prokosch's Voices, which joins the NYRB Classics series this month, caused something of a stir when first published in 1985. Written almost fifty years after his first novel The Asiatics, which was praised by the likes of W.B. Yeats and Thomas Mann, Voices posited itself as a memoir of a literary life well and colorfully lived. Billed as a recounting of the author's early years growing up in middle America, travels, and myriad encounters with some of the world's most famous artists, the book was accepted and praised as genuine autobiography. Readers marveled over the serendipitous meetings—tennis with Ezra Pound, helping Marc Chagall retrieve his wallet from the Grand Canal, sharing a beer with Bertolt Brecht—and Prokosch's prodigious ability to capture setting and the personalities of his subjects. It was not until 2010, more than twenty years after Prokosch's death, that Voices was revealed for what it was: a hoax. As Kathryn Davis writes in her introduction to the NYRB Classics edition of Voices, however, the fact that Prokosch's "memoir" is by and large a fabrication detracts not a bit from the pleasure of reading the book. We thought we would share an excerpt from a chapter dedicated to a (probably imagined) meeting between Prokosch and certain famous Irish author at Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare &. Co. in Paris. Fiction or not, it's loads of fun. Read below. After five weeks in Paris we ran out of cash, so we decided to book our passage back on the Mauretania. I packed my canvas bag, inserting a reproduction of the Mona Lisa as well as a copy of Albertine disparue. John was suffering from bouts of dysentery and I felt a tender solicitude toward him. Two days before we left he murmured over his filtre: "I called Sylvia this morning. He is coming for tea today." "Are we invited?" I said eagerly. "No strangers are permitted. But we can sneak into the bookshop and peek around a bit." So we strolled at four o'clock to number 12 rue de l'Odéon, where Sylvia had her bookshop, Shakespeare & Co. At Sylvia's there was always a smell of the avant-garde. Photographs of Joyce and Ezra Pound and D. H. Lawrence hung on the wall and on the table lay pamphlets printed in Venice and Florence. Sylvia was standing beside the door in a russet tweed suit. Her face was firm and dedicated, with a Grecian jaw and steel-gray eyes. "Has he come yet?" said John. "No, he hasn't," said Sylvia frostily. "You're sure that he's coming?" "Not in the least, dear," said Sylvia. I was leafing through a rare first edition of A Lume Spento when the front door clicked gently and there was a hush in the little bookshop. She led the eccentric genius by the arm into the office and we heard the clicking of teacups and the murmur of voices. I crept closer to the door, which was slightly ajar, and prepared myself mentally for capturing the great man's pronouncements. I heard Sylvia say, "Yes, we've done surprisingly well with it. You'd be surprised at the young Bostonians who creep in and ask for a copy. There was a lady from Cincinnati who wore a hat full of roses. She decided to buy three copies as presents for her aunts." "Delicious tea, this," said the other absentmindedly. "What do you call it? Darjeeling?" "Lapsang souchong," purred Sylvia. "I bought it at Hédiard's." "And these plum tarts are tasty." "They're from Rumpelmeyer's," said Sylvia. She saw me peeping through the doorway and called to me cheerfully. "Well, come in, then, the two of you! He doesn't bite." So we tiptoed into the office and I stared at the great innovator. I clutched at my beret and waited for him to reveal his oddity. He kept staring into his teacup, aloof and dyspeptic. He had the air of an embittered provincial surgeon. He wore a polka-dotted bow tie and a tight-fitting vest and a bandage clung to his left eye like a mushroom. He had a peaked look about him: his chin jutted thinly, his nose was very thin and pointed, and his fingers looked like tendrils, green and attenuated. We sat down on the rattan chairs and Sylvia brought out two more teacups, and the scent of the tea filled the air with an oblique flavor. There was a long, uneasy silence. Nobody spoke.
Voices goes on sale today. Find it on our website here or at your local bookseller. Image above: Sylvia Beach at Shakespeare & Co., Paris, 1920. Richard Hell is continuing his tour in support of the NYRB Classics reissue of his novel Godlike out on the West Coast this week. If you live or find yourself near any of these lovely bookstores, consider stopping in for a reading. Wednesday, March 11, 7pm PT
Powell's City of Books
1005 W. Burnside St, Portland, OR
MORE INFOFriday, March 13, 7pm PT
Green Apple Books on the Park
1231 9th Ave, San Francisco, CA
RSVPMonday, March 16, 7pm
Stories Books & Cafe
1716 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
MORE INFOThursday, March 19, 7pm
Beyond Baroque
681 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
TICKETS HEREAlso, for anyone fascinated by the setting of Godlike, The New York Times just published an entertaining look inside Hell's East Village apartment, where he has lived since the 1970s. Read that story here. Above image: Richard Hell reading at e-flux in Brooklyn, March 2026. Brad Neely in New York and Austin New York Review Comics is putting out Brad Neely's Creased Comics next month! Neely will be making a few appearances in support of the book leading up to its release. Friday, March 27, 7pm ET
WORD Bookstore
126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn, NY
MORE INFOSaturday, March 28
MoCCA Arts Fest
Metropolitcan Pavillion, 125 W 18th St, NYC
Panel at 2:30pm ET with Caroline Cash and Mattie Lubchansky
Book signing at Table #95 from 3:30–4:30pm ET
TICKETS TO MoCCA HERESunday, March 29th, 4:30 pm
Austin Books & Comics
5002 N. Lamar Blvd
MORE INFOMonday, March 30, 7pm CT
BookPeople
603 N Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX
RSVPCreased Comics goes on sale April 21. Next month New York Review Books publishes Nancy Lemann's latest novel, The Oyster Diaries, a book loosely connected to Lemann's debut, cult favorite Lives of the Saints, which NYRB Classics will reissue on the same date. Lemann will be doing several readings and other events in support of the two books beginning with an appearance at The New Orleans Book Festival this weekend. In addition to talking about The Oyster Diaries and Lives of the Saints, Lemann will discuss her new book of nonfiction, The Ritz of the Bayou, publishing with Hub City Press this April. More details about her upcoming events for all books below. Friday, March 13, 11am CT
The New Orleans Book Festival
Tulane University, LA
"Fiction & the Culture Comedy of American Life"
A panel with Patricia Lockwood and Danzy Senna
Moderated by C. J. Farley.
MORE INFOWednesday, April 1, 5pm CT
Lemuria Books
4465 I-55 Ste 202, Jackson, MS
MORE INFOThursday, April 2, 6pm CT
The Powerhouse
413 S 14th St, Oxford, MS
In-person and radio discussion on Tackher Mountain Radio Hour with WUMS-FM 92.1
MORE INFOThursday, April 9, 7pm ET
McNally Jackson Seaport
4 Fulton Street, NYC
with Susan Minot
RSVP HEREFriday, April 17, 7pm ET
Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC
with Terence Monmaney
MORE INFOThursday, May 7, 6pm CT
Pass Christian Books
300 East Scenic Drive, Pass Christian, MS
MORE INFO A New NYRB Classics Book Club at McNally Jackson! This week is the first meeting of a new NYRB Classics book club at McNally Jackson Booksellers in Downtown Brooklyn. On the second Thursday of each month, readers can join the New York Review Books staff to discuss a book from the NYRB Classics series. We'll read everything from well-loved favorites to lesser-known gems, from the earliest entries in the series to the newest arrivals.The first book we will be reading is Felix Salten's Bambi, translated by Damion Searls. There are a few spots left for the discussion on Thursday, March 12. If you are local and want to join, sign up for the book club on McNally Jackson's website here. You also can sign up for the April book club discussion about Elizabeth Taylor's Angel now. RSVP here. Our monthly foray into Henry David Thoreau's The Journal: 1837–1861. This month, we have an entry from March 10, 1853. Thoreau was thirty-five.March 10. This is the first really spring day. The sun is brightly reflected from all surfaces, and the north side of the street begins to be a little more passable to foot-travellers. You do not think it necessary to button up your coat.I see many middling-sized black spiders on the edge of the snow, very active. The radical leaves of innumerable plants (as here a dock in and near the water) are evidently affected by the spring influences. Many plants are to some extent evergreen, like the buttercup now beginning to start. Methinks the first obvious evidence of spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow catkins, then the relaxing of the earlier alder catkins, then the pushing up of skunk-cabbage spathes (and pads at the bottom of water). This is the order I am inclined to, though perhaps any of these may take precedence of all the rest in any particular case. At Nut Meadow Brook crossing we rest awhile on the rail, gazing into the eddying stream. The ripple-marks on the sandy bottom, where silver spangles shine in the river with black wrecks of caddis-cases lodged under each shelving sand, the shadows of the invisible dimples reflecting prismatic colors on the bottom, the minnows already stemming the current with restless, wiggling tails, ever and anon darting aside, probably to secure some invisible mote in the water, whose shadows we do not at first detect on the sandy bottom,—when detected so much more obvious as well as larger and more interesting than the substance,—in which each fin is distinctly seen, though scarcely to be detected in the substance; these are all very beautiful and exhilarating sights, a sort of diet drink to heal our winter discontent. Have the minnows played thus all winter? The equisetum at the bottom has freshly grown several inches. Then should I not have given the precedence on the last page to this and some other water-plants? I suspect that I should, and the flags appear to be starting. What was that sound that came on the softened air? It was the warble of the first bluebird from that scraggy apple orchard yonder. When this is heard, then has spring arrived. It must be that the willow twigs, both the yellow and green, are brighter-colored than before. I cannot be deceived Painting: Birdsong, Károly Ferenczy, 1893 The March selection of the NYRB Classics Book Club is The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover. If you join the NYRB Classics Book Club by Wednesday, March 11, The Universal Baseball Corp will be your first selection. "Godlike is a poet’s novel, a dazzling Künstlerroman that touches on art, love, aging, and queerness..." —Taran Dugal, The New Yorker, on Richard Hell's Godlike"As with Pym’s other novels, The Sweet Dove Died renders with wry humor the foibles and contradictions of a culture of manners—the art of the polite insult, the ludicrous arbitrariness of custom . . . While it’s never been the most popular of Pym’s works, The Sweet Dove Died is the most searching: It captures Pym’s ambivalent reflections on a cultural landscape that she both profited from and yet clearly saw through." —Ashley Cullina, The Nation, on Barbara Pym's The Sweet Dove Died“It’s a heady mix of intense smut and poetic prose with an unforgettable chapter at the sauna,” —Mikey Friedman, The Strategist, on Robert Glück's Jack the Modernist"[One of] the first translations of Rumi's poems into English done by a native Farsi speaker . . . [Gafori] really understands the nuances that have often been missed . . . Rumi teaches us how to love, how to live . . . These couplets have inscribed themselves in my mind." —Riz Ahmed, Inklings Book Club Podcast, on Haleh Liza Gafori's translations of Rumi in Gold Image at top of newsletter: Shelves in the NYRB offices, March 2026. |
