September News and Highlights

Letter from New York City September 2025 Dear Readers, We are kicking the fall literary season off with a bang this year. We have a fresh crop of books by some heavy-hitters publishing this month: Virginia Woolf, Barbara Pym, Diane DiMassa, and Mort Walker, to name a few. In a couple of weeks, Tove Jansson's The Summer Book comes to the silver screen in a film adaptation starring Glenn Close, and we have produced a special edition of the beloved novel for the occasion. There are lots of events happening in New York City and beyond, too, from film screenings to translation festivals to artist talks. To top it all off, NYRB will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival on September 20 and 21. Details about all of this, along with a look at a science-fiction masterpiece and other goodies, follow below.  Happy reading, The NYRB Staff   NYRB at the Brooklyn Book Festival If you live in or around the New York City area, come visit us at the Brooklyn Book Festival later this month.  On Children's Day, Saturday, September 20, you can find us at booth 3A for discounted NYRB Kids titles! One the Main Day, Sunday, September 21, we will be slinging discounted NYRB books and giving away free issues of The New York Review of Books at booths 415-416. Just a note to our BBF regulars: we will not be in our usual spot by the big fountain but close to that spot.  Also on Sunday is a conversation between Diana DiMassa, author of Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist (New York Review Comics), and cartoonist Alison Bechdel at 4pm in the Borough Hall Courtroom. More information here.  The Brooklyn Book Festival is free and open to the public.   Hidden Gems: Inverted World B-sides and other lesser-known books from the NYRB Classics Series "I had reached the age of six hundred and fifty miles." The opening sentence of Christopher Priest's 1974 novel Inverted World is now considered one of the most famous in the science fiction genre, a line that plunges readers into the weird universe of Priest's imagination. "The reason for the story's appeal," wrote Nick Owchar in the Los Angeles Times, "is the way in which Priest, with the novel's very first sentence, immerses us within a strange new reality." Despite its fame in the science fiction realm, Inverted World is often overshadowed by a later book in the author's oeuvre, a little novel about a feud between two magicians titled The Prestige. Priest purists, however, return to Inverted World over and over and with good reason: the novel is an ingenious subversion of science fiction conventions, and a brilliant work of literature on its own.  Impulse Vol. 1 No. 3, in which Priest's story "The Run" first appeared. Born in 1943 in the town of Cheadle, Cheshire County, England, Priest began writing stories in his early twenties while working various clerical jobs, including stints in a greeting card company and a mail-order publishing house. His first published story, "The Run," appeared in the short-lived British sci-fi magazine Impulse in 1966. By 1968, Priest became a full-time freelance writer and devoted himself entirely to the world of science fiction, both as an author and a fan. (He would even go on to serve as an associate editor for the sci-fi review journal Foundation from 1974 to 1977.)  Priest published his first full-length novel Indoctrinaire in 1970. It was an ambitious work, combining high-concept science fiction with an ecological treatise of sorts. Though promising, the book received mixed reviews. His next novel, Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972), enjoyed more success, coming third in the 1973 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Set in a near-future England that has been devastated by Civil War, Fugue depicts a world in which conservative politicians are so obsessed with stopping an influx of immigrants that they lay waste to their own homeland. This prescient work explored themes that Priest would return to throughout his writing career: man-made disaster, prejudice, and the possible fate of his home country. It was the latter subject that would, arguably, fascinate Priest the most. England—or at least imagined, often fantastical versions of it—would serve as the background for many of the author's most memorable stories.  An old edition of Priest's first novel, Indoctrinaire First UK edition of Fugue for a Darkening Island First UK edition of Inverted World While Priest's first two novels established the author as a promising new voice in science fiction, it was with Inverted World in 1974 that Priest  cemented his reputation not only as a sci-fi master, but also as a serious literary talent. The book focuses on a young protagonist named Helward Mann, through whose eyes the reader experiences much of the story. Helward lives in Earth, a city on wheels slowly but perpetually moving forward across a disaster-ravaged planet. Upon turning "six hundred and fifty miles old," Helward joins one of the city's many guilds, organizations tasked helping the city to survive its treacherous environment. Helward pledges himself to service in the "Futures," a guild in charge of exploring the terrain ahead of the city—"north," or "up future," as the guild members call it. While apprenticing, Helward learns more about the terrifying nature of the world in which he has grown up, a world in which his city must move forward at all costs lest it be destroyed.  Various paperback editions of Inverted World, many consisting of art conceptualizing the ever-moving city of Earth As Jonathan Letham writes in his afterword to the NYRB Classics edition, Inverted World is Priest's first take on "Hard SF," an iteration of the sci-fi genre that follows a promethean protagonist on a journey during which they discover the truth about their world. Indeed, Helward does seem to be on such a journey, guarding the devastating secret behind the city's perpetual forward motion and dedicating his life to the mitigation of its peril. When Priest introduces a new character, an outsider named Elizabeth Kahn, however, the conventions of Hard SF are soundly challenged—even, you might say, inverted entirely. The result is a twist ending that is genuinely shocking for first-time readers, and an astounding reimagining of the Hard SF genre. As Letham writes, "Priest's book is an engine of epiphany, and a formal marvel: a narrative in the exact shape of the conundrum it presents."  Inverted World would fix Priest's place in the canon of science fiction and set the stage for a long, prodigious career in which the author would publish over twenty novels and several short story collections. At the heart of his oeuvre, however, is a series of novels and stories that take place in Priest's most famous alternative reality, The Dream Archipelago. The Dream Archipelago stories, which take place in a fictional archipelago that is at peace while the rest of the world is at war, span from Priest's early novel The Affirmation through one of the last novels he wrote, The Evidence (2020). Much of Priest's fame was limited to lovers of serious science fiction until his 1995 novel, The Prestige, was adapted into the well-received film of the same name starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman in 2008.  First UK edition of The Prestige The short story collection and five novels that comprise Priest's books set in The Dream Archipelago universe Despite achieving a glimmer of Hollywood glory, Priest's legacy remains a complicated one. Outside of The Prestige his books are still primarily enjoyed by the sci-fi set despite his literary bonafides. In 1983, Priest was included in the Granta Best of Young British Novelists, a group of twenty writers—among them Martin Amis, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, and Salman Rushdie—most of whom were a good deal younger than Priest. Critics have theorized that Priest is not more readily categorized with these celebrated contemporaries today because he was unapologetically proud of writing science fiction, a genre that is often ignored by many literary readers. As Priest's partner Nina Allan wrote on Priest's blog after his death in early 2024, it was the science fiction world—its conventions, its fandom, its readers—that brought him the most joy. He remained an enthusiastically active member of the community until his death, a commitment that his fans reward with their enduring affection for his books.  Christopher Priest, 2014 For the next few days, Inverted World will be 25% off on our website.  BUY THE BOOK   The Summer Book on the Big Screen Later this month, the first film adaptation of Tove Jansson's The Summer Book will premiere in the US. The movie, directed by Charlie McDowell, stars Glenn Close as the stalwart grandmother, and newcomer Emily Matthews plays her granddaughter, Sophia. Anders Danielsen Lie (The Worst Person in the World) co-stars as Sophia's grief-stricken father.  The Summer Book premieres at Angelika Film Center New York on Friday, September 19. Watch the trailer for the movie below.  You can also now purchase a movie tie-in edition of The Summer Book on our website or wherever books are sold.    Edwin Frank on the Political Novel: A Seminar Series Another reminder that Edwin Frank, editorial director of New York Review Books and author of Stranger Than Fiction: The Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel, will be teaching a series of online seminars on the political novel via NYR Seminars this fall, and the first seminar starts this month! The three seminars will be devoted to different masters of the political novel: Anthony Trollope, Joseph Conrad, and Ursula K. Le Guin and H. G. Wells. In the Trollope series, participants will discuss the author's parliamentary (or Palliser) novels. For the Joseph Conrad seminar, Frank will explore three of Conrad's most prophetic works, Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, and The Secret Agent. The last series will center on Le Guin's science fiction opus The Dispossessed and preceding works of speculative political fiction by Wells, namely The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau.  Visit the NYR Seminars page here for more information and links to register for each of the seminars.  Edwin Frank in the NYRB offices   Upcoming Events Tuesday, September 9, 6pm at Bluestockings Cooperative, NYC: Diane DiMassa launches the NYR Comics publication of her Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, in conversation with Kate Bornstein. More information here.  Tuesday, September 9, 8:30pm at Film Forum, NYC: a screening of François Truffaut's The Wild Child, which follows the case of the "Wild Boy of Aveyron" also explored in Roger Shattuck's The Forbidden Experiment. Jed Perl, who wrote the introduction to the NYRB Classics edition of The Forbidden Experiment, will introduce this screening. Tickets available here.  Thursday, September 18, 7pm at 192 Books, NYC: Tom McCarthy reads from and discusses his new book with Notting Hill Editions, The Threshold and the Ledger, with Jamieson Webster. More information here.  Thursday, September 25, 6:30pm at Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT: Diane DiMassa discusses Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist with Alex Dueben. More information here.  Monday, September 29, 7pm at Busboys and Poets Books, Washington, DC: Peter Cole, translator of Hayim Nahman Bialik's poetry in the forthcoming On the Slaughter, will present his translation work as a visiting writer at Let's Talk: International Writers Festival. More information here.  Tuesday, September 30, 4:30pm at the Alan Cheuse International Writer's Center, Fairfax, VA: Peter Cole will discuss his translations of the great Hebrew poet Hayim Nahman Bialik in the keynote discussion, 'Translators of Desire,' at Let's Talk: Day of Translation, of which Cole is the featured speaker. More information here.  Tuesday, September 30, 7pm at Community Bookstore, Brooklyn: Edward Mendelson discusses editing the NYRB Classics edition of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. More information here.    September with Thoreau Our monthly foray into Henry David Thoreau's The Journal: 1837–1861. This month, we have an entry from September 1854. Thoreau was thirty-seven, adopting baby turtles, his thoughts suffering a sea-turn. Sept. 3. Woodbine berries purple. Even at this season I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier. Close to the left-hand side of bridle-road, about a hundred rods south of the oak, a bayberry bush without fruit, probably a male one. It made me realize that this was only a more distant and elevated sea-beach and that we were within reach of marine influences. My thoughts suffered a sea-turn. Sept. 4. Monday. I have provided my little snapping turtle with a tub of water and mud, and it is surprising how fast he learns to use his limbs and this world. He actually runs, with the yolk still trailing from him, as if he had got new vigor from contact with the mud. The insensibility and toughness of his infancy make our life, with its disease and low spirits, ridiculous. He impresses me as the rudiment of a man worthy to inhabit the earth. He is born with a shell. That is symbolical of his toughness. His shell being so rounded and sharp on the back at this age, he can turn over without trouble. Sept. 6. My little turtle, taken out of the shell September 2d, has a shell one and seven fortieths inches long, or four fortieths longer than the diameter of the egg-shell, to say nothing of head and tail. Warm weather again, and sultry nights the last two. The last a splendid moonlight and quite warm. Painting: Birge Harrison, Moonlight on the Hackensack.   September Books THE SUMMER BOOK MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION by Tove Jansson MRS. DALLOWAY by Virginia Woolf THE SWEET DOVE DIED by Barbara Pym HOTHEAD PAISAN: HOMICIDAL LESBIAN TERRORIST by Diane DiMassa MISS RUKI by Fumiko Takano THE LEXICON OF COMICANA by Mort Walker THE THRESHOLD AND THE LEDGER by Tom McCarthy Notting Hill Editions THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF H. LAN THAO LAM by Lana Lin Dorothy, a publishing project THE ENDLESS WEEK by Laura Vasquez Dorothy, a publishing project CÉCÉ by Emmelie Prophète Archipelago Books TAKE A WALK WITH THE WIND by Xiong Liang Elsewhere Editions   The September selection of the NYRB Classics Book Club is The Stone Door by Leonora Carrington. If you join the NYRB Classics Book Club by Wednesday, September 10, The Stone Door will be your first selection.    In the Press "Now at last, the wait’s over, the secret’s out. Fumiko Takano, manga poet and pioneer, has reached our shores. One of her most daring, delightful manga, acclaimed in Japan and Europe, is here, thanks to Alexa Frank’s sparkling translation of Miss Ruki." —Daniel Meyerowitz, The Comics Journal, on Miss Ruki by Fumiko Takano "While the novel inevitably includes the prejudices and assumptions of its time, it also echoes the ever-changing, irresolute, self-questioning and contradictory reflections of Per in a search for the self that leads into the lonely morass that constitutes that self. He is the conscience of a novel that deserves to be considered among the greatest works of world literature." —Declan O'Driscoll, The Irish Times, on A Fortunate Man by Henrik Pontoppidan   Image at top of newsletter: art by Zoe Guttenplan for the NYRB Classics edition of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway   You are receiving this message because you signed up for email newsletters from NYRB. 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