Latest news with #TheNewYorker
Ottawa Citizen
3 days ago
- Science
- Ottawa Citizen
Spears: AI offered to write my book. How could I refuse?
A cheery ad popped up on my screen a few days ago: 'What's stopping you from writing your book? Article content 'Time? Writer's block? Endless revisions?' Article content Article content Some outfit called Squibler promises its AI engine will give me a 'publish-ready book in minutes.' Article content It offered a free trial. How could I refuse? Article content I typed a few quick notes for a novel — worried prime minister, global crisis, Canadian space mission in trouble. Added a dog, and I have no idea why I added 'with asthma.' And I hit Send. Article content Article content Squibler shot me a draft entitled Moon Shot Mayhem within seconds. Article content It was a dark and stormy sight. Article content Read on, and see whether you agree with me that artificial intelligence can do wonderful things fast, but maybe it can also do awful things just as fast. Article content 'The mahogany desk in Prime Minister Tom Spears' Ottawa office usually held only the weight of impending legislation and the occasional strategically placed Canadian maple leaf paperweight. Today, however, it groaned under the sheer crushing weight of a global crisis: a hydrazine shortage of apocalyptic proportions. The room itself was a maelstrom of frantic activity. Aides zipped around like caffeinated bumblebees, phones shrieked a symphony of unanswered calls, and the air hung thick with the scent of stale coffee and impending doom.' Article content (The New Yorker has a recurring gem called Block That Metaphor. Please notice the apocalypses and symphonies and maelstrom all jumbled together. By the way, hydrazine is actual spaceship fuel.) So, onward: Article content Article content 'Spears, a man whose usual expression resembled a bewildered Labrador, now looked like a Labrador who had just witnessed its favourite squeaky toy spontaneously combust. Disbelief warred with panic in his eyes, the colour draining from his face faster than the hydrazine from Canada's dwindling reserves. The moon mission, the crowning jewel of his administration… it was all hanging by a thread thinner than a politician's promise. Article content Article content 'Just then Buttercup, the Prime Minister's asthmatic bloodhound — a creature whose respiratory issues were rivalled by his unparalleled sense of smell — let out a series of wheezy gasps, his jowls quivering. He'd located something. Something suspicious.
New Indian Express
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
On editors, the invisible architects
In a world that celebrates authors as solitary geniuses, the role of the editor remains largely invisible. A name tucked into acknowledgements, buried in footnotes, or sometimes not mentioned at all. Yet anyone who has truly wrestled with the written word knows: behind every great book stands a quiet co-creator. Editors do more than fix grammar or polish style. They are critics, confidantes, coaches, and often, crisis managers. They are the invisible architects of Maxwell Perkins, the legendary editor who shaped the careers and voices of giants of American literature such as F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. As Scott Berg's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (later adapted into the film Genius), brilliantly reveals, Perkins was more than an editor. He was a career counsellor, a therapist, a financial lifeline, and above all, a believer. My own writing journey has been shaped by the steady, compassionate hands of remarkable editors. My wife, Deepali, was my first and fiercest critic. She was never afraid to tell me when something didn't work, but always with the faith that it could. She reminded me that writing, like any practice, demands repetition and resilience. C K Meena, my co-author, wields her editorial scalpel with grace and precision. She taught me the value of brevity: that writing is not just about what to say, but what to leave out. And then there was Abhivyakti Singh at Hachette. Gentle yet unwavering. She believed in my voice even when I doubted it myself. The work of great editors often hides in plain sight. Take Ursula Nordstrom, the visionary children's editor at Harper & Row. Her letters, compiled in Dear Genius, are a testament to editorial empathy. Alternately playful, firm, maternal, and fiercely protective, her correspondence with authors like Margaret Wise Brown, Maurice Sendak, and Shel Silverstein reveals a sacred trust. Harold Ross, the founding editor of The New Yorker, left his imprint on the very tone of the magazine. His letters, collected in Letters from the Editor, reveal a man obsessed with rhythm, honesty, and precision. Closer to home, Ramachandra Guha's The Cooking of Books offers a delightful glimpse into the Indian publishing ecosystem. Built around his irreverent and witty exchanges with the reclusive editor Rukun Advani, the book reminds us that editorial relationships are often marked by friction, pushback, and negotiation, but at their best, they are built on mutual trust. Chiki Sarkar represents a new breed of editor – entrepreneurial, intuitive, and in tune with the digital generation. From her time leading Penguin India to founding Juggernaut Books, Sarkar has championed new voices and unconventional formats such as mobile-first literature. One of the towering figures in modern publishing was Sonny Mehta. As the publisher of Knopf, Mehta was a soft-spoken force who balanced literary excellence with commercial appeal. He wasn't interested in trends but in truth. He guided the careers of Haruki Murakami, Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, and countless others. Speaking of Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, few know she was a trailblazing editor who championed Black voices at Random House long before the industry prioritised diversity. Fewer still know that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lived a second life as an editor – a talented one, with a discerning eye – at Viking and Doubleday. What connects unsung editors across the globe is their courage to say 'not yet' when everyone else is saying 'good enough'. They listen, hearing what isn't yet said; they sense the story beneath the syntax and then reveal it. Their fingerprints may be invisible, but their impact is unmistakable. The rewards they seek are not fame or fortune but a line that sings, a paragraph that finally breathes. Their work is a labour of devotion – to the writer, to the reader, and most of all, to the story. To all the invisible architects who shaped the books that shaped us – this is your story too. Thank you. (The writer's views are personal)
Mint
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
Lounge Loves: ‘Marley Springs Ahead', ‘Jogi' and more
The first look for Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar, which dropped last week, is a surprisingly well-put-together Bollywood promo. The action is cut to the beat of Jogi, a 2003 track by UK producer Panjabi MC. This was a remix of an incredibly catchy 1995 Punjabi folk number called Na Dil De Pardesi Nu, composed by Charanjit Ahuja. Panjabi MC kept Muhammad Sadiq and Ranjit Kaur's playful vocals, adding a big beat and a few yells. The track appeared on the same album that gave the international hit Mundian To Bach Ke. The Dhurandhar version sounds essentially like Panjabi MC's, with some further mixing and tweaking by Shashwat Sachdev. The biggest addition is a rap by Hanumankind, who made a big splash last year with Big Dawgs. Sadiq and Kaur's original vocals can scarcely be improved, and are duly retained here as well. It's impossible not to read Jhumpa Lahiri's new short fiction, Jubilee (published recently in The New Yorker), as a fragment of autobiography. The unnamed first-person narrator revisits the year when Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her jubilee. Back in 1977, she, the narrator, then a girl of 10, spent three months in London, the city of her birth, with her parents and infant sister. Her memories of that time are light and innocent, but also heavy with a tragic awareness—of the past as well as future. Inspired by writer Mavis Gallant, Jubilee could have come from Lahiri's Pulitzer-winning debut collection, The Interpreter of Maladies (2000). It's an elegy to loved ones, especially to mothers, crafted with the delicate reserve that Lahiri is synonymous with. We have a pile of baby books at home which my one-year-old used to pore over in awe, but now the awe only lasts a few seconds per book. The only book that holds her for longer is Marley Springs Ahead, a touch book about a dog that my sister fortunately saved after having her child over a decade ago. Between my child's love for animals and the bright colours and different textures, Marley is definitely her favourite book. We don't go anywhere without him. Unfortunately, there aren't more available in India, so I'm being ultra careful with this book. I am even softer on him after discovering he is the very Marley that Marley and Me was based on, and by the same author.
Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The Times Luxury Cartoon: July 21, 2025
Tom Toro is a New Yorker cartoonist and author/illustrator. His cartoons have been popular features of The New Yorker for over a decade.
Japan Today
6 days ago
- General
- Japan Today
‘The Hiroshima Men' is a reminder of the horrific human costs of atomic attack
This cover image shows "The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It" by Iain MacGregor. book review By ANITA SNOW John Hersey was a 32-year-old reporter who returned from Japan with in 1946 with a groundbreaking story that challenged the U.S. government's version of its atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, showing the human consequences were far more horrific and extensive than the American public had been told. Hersey's 30,000-word piece for The New Yorker magazine focused on a few of the thousands of survivors who fell ill, and often died, from the lingering effects of radiation long after the bomb's initial impact killed tens of thousands of Japanese men, women and children. Hersey is among diverse group of men author and historian Iain MacGregor profiles in his new book, 'The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It.' MacGregor earlier wrote 'Checkpoint Charlie,' an acclaimed history of Cold War Berlin, as well as 'The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II.' With the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack approaching next month, 'The Hiroshima Men' is a potent reminder of the extreme human costs that were wrought by the first atomic weapon employed during warfare. By profiling some key players, MacGregor pulls readers into their personal stories with visually enticing description and lively dialogue. One was pilot Paul Tibbetts, Jr., who fell in love with flying at age 12 when he rode in an old biplane that took off from a horse racing track outside Miami. He named the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that he was flying when it dropped the atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, for his mother, Enola Gay. Another profile is of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant scientific theorist who inspired a team testing the atomic bomb at a secret research laboratory in rural New Mexico. There's also Maj. Gen. Henry 'Hap' Arnold, who led the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II and understood what could be achieved with the faster long-range B-29 bomber, which could travel farther and fly much higher than the popular B-17 that had been used on Europe. MacGregor also introduces us to Senkichi Awaya, the mayor of Hiroshima, a city founded in the late 1580s by a powerful warlord who built a castle headquarters on the shores of a strategically located bay. There are many more. The most powerful sections of the book come toward the end, when MacGregor describes the ghastly aftermath of the bombing — a gruesome hellscape littered with charred bodies and stunned survivors with skin dangling from their bodies and eyes hanging from the sockets. He then invites readers to reflect on the event's profound costs: 'I hope, looking right across the experience of this terrifying and cataclysmic event, that you, the reader, can judge for yourself whether this journey through the experiences of a city mayor, a bomber pilot, an Army general and an award-winning journalist, who all were intimately connected to Hiroshima, was worth it.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
