NEW DIRECTIONS PUBLISHING

jennwitte: interior decorating with your Alvin Lustig: for New...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:47:24 -0400

jennwitte:

interior decorating with your Alvin Lustig: for New Directions postcard set

On the Lustig/Great Gatsby note: The Great Gatsby book cover...

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:39:45 -0400

On the Lustig/Great Gatsby note: The Great Gatsby book cover t-shirt over at Outofprintclothing.com

I first met the artist and designer Elaine Lustig Cohen through...

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:39:53 -0400

I first met the artist and designer Elaine Lustig Cohen through the website dedicated to her former husband, the legendary designer Alvin Lustig. Back in 2006, I had been asked to get in touch with the estate regarding his jacket designs for New Directions: we were hoping to replace intermediate designs on some of our books with the original Lustigs. I was an editorial assistant at the time; New Directions was still going through a generational change. Emails were considered unofficial. One senior editor told me to type a letter, “preferably with a typewriter.” Another told me to call. But I had neither an address nor an number. So I emailed the webmaster of the Alvin Lustig site and hoped for the best. Elaine herself answered my inquiry—it was the first contact she had had with New Directions since its founder James Laughlin passed away in 1997.

BOMBLOG: Elaine Lustig Cohen by Michael Barron

Perhaps it is wrong to speak of oneself while writing of...

Fri, 03 May 2013 11:53:51 -0400

Perhaps it is wrong to speak of oneself while writing of another, but I truly wonder if I would have become as I am without her. Would I have carried myself with the same swagger, or faced adversity with such feminine resolve, without Albertine as my guide? Would my young poems have possessed such a biting tongue without Astragal as my guidebook?

Patti Smith on Albertine Sarrazin’s Astragal. - Slate Magazine

Finally, finally! The Lustig postcards are in. They are...

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:37:57 -0400

Finally, finally! The Lustig postcards are in. They are gorgeous.

"The essays I wrote were generally lucid, and I also had the voice of a crane, which was why..."

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:39:02 -0400

“The essays I wrote were generally lucid, and I also had the voice of a crane, which was why I’d often been chosen to speak at sports festivals or receptions for official visitors. Besides, I probably gave the impression of being difficult to seduce.”

- The Naked Eye, Yoko Tawada

"With determination and persistence she seeks her food and, if they don’t let her have it, she..."

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:05:00 -0400

“With determination and persistence she seeks her food and, if they don’t let her have it, she attacks with fury. This morning at breakfast time, in the dining room, a spectacle awaited me that I won’t forget so easily. In the center of the table sat the little girl with a croissant in each hand. I thought I noticed on her blonde doll cheeks a coloration that was too red. She was smeared with jam and blood. The bodies––or remains, rather––of the family rested against one another with their heads together, in a corner of the room.”

- Good Morning! from Adolfo Bioy Casares’ short story, “Margarita or the Power of Pharmaceuticals”

Jorges Luis Borges in his bedroom. (via 25 Fascinating Photos of...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:25:43 -0400

Jorges Luis Borges in his bedroom.

(via 25 Fascinating Photos of Famous Writers at Home – Flavorwire)

Nazi Literature in the Americas inspires an album

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:55:00 -0400

“The book contains some original passages, especially the descriptions of the Women’s Fourth Reich and the nostalgic, pseudo-scientific digressions about a gland that produces the feeling of love.”

Dusted Reviews on Charbel Haber’s “Two Germans At The End of the Earth” (It Ended Up Being a Great Day, Mr.Allende)

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/7612

Come play with us on April Fool's! You won't believe your eyes.

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:54:09 -0400

http://litcrawlnyc.tumblr.com/post/45753126017/books-drinks-trivia-love-the-best-april-fools

On contradiction: “i realize all this sounds both chaotic and...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:39:48 -0400

On contradiction: “i realize all this sounds both chaotic and dishonest and probably that is the case. contradiction is the test of reality, as Simone Weil says.”

On insects: “i admire the parsimony of ladybugs.”

The Inscrutable Brilliance of Anne Carson - NYTimes.com

Fun with Alvin Lustig’s Designs

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:28:37 -0400

Fun with Alvin Lustig’s Designs

The first of the Poetry Pamphlets have arrived! Sorting Facts,...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:22:40 -0500

The first of the Poetry Pamphlets have arrived! Sorting Facts, or Nineteen Ways of Looking at Chris Marker, by Susan Howe; Two American Scenes, by Lydia Davis & Eliot Weinberger; Pneumatic Antiphonal, by Sylvia Legris; The Helens of Troy, New York, by Bernadette Mayer.

Also newly arrived: the Alvin Lustig postcard collection!

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:04:08 -0500

Also newly arrived: the Alvin Lustig postcard collection!

Also! Check out this awesome new cover for our Pearl edition of...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:45:20 -0500

Also! Check out this awesome new cover for our Pearl edition of Mishima’s great great Patriotism.

Coming soon: Alvin Lustig for New Directions: 50 Postcards

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:41:33 -0500

Coming soon: Alvin Lustig for New Directions: 50 Postcards

Love Poems

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:17:59 -0500

Love Poems

digging into the file cabinets here always yields gems, like...

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 11:03:00 -0500

digging into the file cabinets here always yields gems, like this photo of Delmore Schwartz and a letter in careful cursive, dated Mar 8 1972, from a student asking for information on Schwartz for a term paper due on March 23.

Alan Ladd (Gatsby in the 1949 adaptation), reading ND’s...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 10:19:26 -0500

Alan Ladd (Gatsby in the 1949 adaptation), reading ND’s 1946 edition of The Great Gatsby, with cover design by Alvin Lustig.

Found: Kafkaesque Amerika

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:22:00 -0500

So we (by which I mean I), am in the middle of an incredible (and incredibly graphic) novel called Dirty Weekend, by British writer Helen Zahavi. It is, essentially, the story of one young woman who has had enough with the power men exert over her. The book was made into a film of the same title, and directed by the guy who also did Charles Bronson’s Death Wish. That should give you an idea of what we’re dealing with.

Anyway, to the point. On page 76, I came across the paragraph you see highlighted below. To provide a bit of context, she’s in a gun shop, trying to buy a handgun, and the men in the store — customers and employees — are joking among themselves about a “Saturday night special,” and this leads Bella, the star of the book, to muse about America. Or rather, Amerika.

As publisher of Franz Kafka’s Amerika, I simply couldn’t resist sharing.

Oh, and the book is amazing, albeit not for the faint of heart.