The Arts section of Wednesday’s New York Times carried an ad from Vintage Books for the new paperback edition of Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland. Across the top was a banner printed in comical all-caps: “THE NOVEL THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA IS NOW READING.”
Earlier this month, Vintage had bumped up the release date of the Read More
On Wednesday, April 29, CNN reported that Barack Obama was reading Joseph O’Neill’s 2008 New York novel Netherland. The tidbit came from an advance copy of this past weekend’s New York Times Magazine, in which the president told reporter David Leonhardt that boring White House briefing books had led him to Read More
In a company-wide memo sent to Random House staff this afternoon—labeled "a very different memo" by company spokesman Stuart Applebaum when he forwarded it to media—Markus Dohle turned a spotlight upon Random House’s strong presence on year-end book lists published this week by The Toronto Globe and Mail and The New York Times Read More
The Booker Prize shortlist was announced this afternoon, and, no surprise, people are already pissed about it. Industry newsletter Publisher’s Lunch (sub. required) noted: "What a ‘shock.’ As usual, manufactured ‘surprise’ is the fuel of the Booker publicity machine, as the ‘longlist’ turns out to be a head fake for the real shortlist." Read More
Netherland
By Joseph O’Neill
Pantheon, 256 pages, $23.95
The title of Netherland, the third novel by Irish-born Joseph O’Neill, refers not to “Neverland” or a place at the end of mist and mystery; it embraces rather the Dutch origins of New York City. The events of 9/11 plant dismay in a modern marriage, not eased Read More
