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      I’ve Listened to ‘The Great Gatsby’ 200 Times. Here’s What I Learned.

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      “The Great Gatsby” turned 100 this week. Probably, like me, you first read it in high school. My true engagement with the novel, though, began five years ago, when I was in my 50s and a writer and college teacher, and I started listening to a portion of the “Gatsby” audiobook every night.I started on March 17, 2020, which was the day the province of Ontario, where I live, declared a state of emergency because of Covid. My wife and I had listened to Jake Gyllenhaal’s rendition of “Gatsby” during a 2015 road trip, liked it and thought it would be a diverting bedtime story to get us through the lockdown, which we expected to last about three or four weeks. We set a sleep timer, pressed “play” and listened for 45 minutes, and the lockdown wound up lasting nearly two years.“Gatsby” for me has grown from a novel bedtime story to a nightly ritual to a kind of compulsion. It’s hard for us to imagine going to bed now without the compelling timbre of Mr. Gyllenhaal in our ears. In 2023 alone, I listened to “Gatsby,” which runs in its entirety for 289 minutes, just over 48 times. I broke that record in 2024 when I stopped setting the sleep timer and began listening to the entire book overnight, letting it unspool into my ears while I slept. “Gatsby” has now laid down roots in my brain — even into my dreams. In a way, that’s not just true of me but of the entire culture.The literary critic Maureen Corrigan once wrote that “Gatsby” contains some of “the most beautiful sentences ever written about America,” and it persists as a book that is nearly “perfect despite the fact that it goes against every expectation of what a Great American Novel should be.”Not only has it inspired at least five movies, an opera and a Broadway musical, “Gatsby” also has a habit of popping up in the strangest places: When the comedian Andy Kaufman wanted to subvert his stand-up by reading from a novel onstage, including on an episode of “Saturday Night Live,” he chose to read from “The Great Gatsby.” His prank inspired the New York-based experimental theater company Elevator Repair Service to create “Gatz” in 2004, a six-and-a-half-hour performance that involves actors reciting the entire book, word for word. And, yes, I’ve seen “Gatz.” Twice.There is a certain look I get when I tell people about my “Gatsby” ritual — call it “curious concern.” If I explain that during Covid I started listening to “Gatsby” as a comfort before bed — and have been listening to it almost every night since — I can hear how strange these words sound even as they trip out of my mouth. Who chooses as a ritual bedtime story a bittersweet novel that ends with a murder-suicide (preceded by a fatal car crash) in which no one finds love and the only character who ends up close to happy is a violent racist and a serial cheat? Maybe “Pride and Prejudice” would be a more acceptable obsession. It’s also a masterpiece and it has a happy ending. But only “Gatsby” can hold my attention. By now, I’m steeped in it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bob McManus, Blunt Editorial Voice of New York Post, Dies at 81

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      As the editor of the tabloid’s editorial page and as a columnist, he skewered those he considered phonies and symbols of failed progressivism.Bob McManus, the trenchant editorial page editor of The New York Post and a columnist for other conservative publications who prided himself on his unambiguous common-sense commentary about public policy and other topics, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 81.The cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of bile duct cancer, said his wife, Mary McManus.An influential and respected editorialist, Mr. McManus pulled no punches but still managed to be widely liked.He could unleash a fusillade of zingers against public officials and other prominent targets he branded phonies or hypocrites. But he could also leaven his caustic criticism with wit.“His prose style might best be described as a punchy amalgam of Damon Runyon, Raymond Chandler, and — a particular McManus favorite — Red Smith,” Edmund J. McMahon, a friend who is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and the founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany, N.Y., said in an interview.After a police officer was assaulted in Times Square last year by a group that included some migrants, Mr. McManus contrasted “a time when slugging a cop would get you bumps on your head” with what he described as the current anarchic system of justice.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Liz Moore on ‘Long Bright River’ and the Slow Burn of Success

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      Suddenly Liz Moore blazed, comet-like, onto small screens and best-seller lists. But her writing career has been a slow burn.No matter how you slice it, Liz Moore has arrived.This month, an adaptation of her blockbuster novel “Long Bright River” started streaming on Peacock. And her next book, “The God of the Woods,” now on the best-seller list for 36 weeks (and counting), will soon hit the million mark in sales — a distinction normally reserved for celebrities and novelists recognizable by last name alone.Moore isn’t one of those authors. But, over the past two decades, she’s proved to be “a writer who can do anything,” as her editor Sarah McGrath put it.Moore taps into an elusive sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction, populating vividly drawn settings with characters who seem to live, breathe and make terrible mistakes along with the rest of us. Her novels can be enjoyed by, say, a teenage girl and her 50-something father, defying genre and categorization to such an extent that, from one to the next, a reader might not register that they’re written by the same person.“I get messages saying, I loved your new book. Do you have any others?” Moore, 41, said during an interview at a cafe in Philadelphia. “Or they’ll call ‘The God of the Woods’ my second book because ‘Long Bright River’ was my first that broke out.”In fact, “The God of the Woods,” a mystery about siblings who disappear 14 years apart, is Moore’s fifth book. She wrote her first, “The Words of Every Song,” while she was a student at Barnard College. Shortly after she graduated in 2005, she signed on with an agent who’d come to campus for a panel on the publishing industry.“I reached out and said, ‘I have this manuscript of interconnected stories about the music industry. Would you be interested in looking at it?’ She said yes,” Moore recalled. “Only in retrospect do I realize what a lucky break that was.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Thomas Hoobler, Half of a Prolific Writing Couple, Dies at 82

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      He and his wife, Dorothy Hoobler, wrote 103 books, most recently one about presidential love letters, “Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making?”Thomas Hoobler, who with his wife, Dorothy Hoobler, wrote 103 books across a vast range of subjects, including young-adult biographies of Margaret Mead, mystery novels set in 18th-century Japan and, most recently, a book about presidential love letters with the attention-grabbing title “Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making?,” died on Feb. 22 in Manhattan. He was 82.His wife and their daughter, Ellen Hoobler-Banavadikar, said the cause of his death, at a hospital, was a stroke. His death was not widely reported at the time.The Hooblers were journeyman writers, contributing to series that will be familiar to any pre-teenager or parent of a pre-teenager, including Penguin’s wildly successful history books known by fans as “Big Heads” for their cartoonish covers, which bore titles like “Where Are the Great Pyramids?” (2015) and “What Was the San Francisco Earthquake?” (2016).The couple also wrote their own series. They were proudest of the 10 “American Family Albums” they wrote for Oxford University Press, starting with “The Chinese American Family Album” in 1994. The series, which drew on diaries, photographs and newspaper clippings to tell the story of the American immigrant experience, won a slew of honors, according to the Hooblers’ website, including three awards from the Parents’ Choice Foundation, a nonprofit guide to children’s media and toys.The Hooblers wrote 10 “American Family Albums” for Oxford University Press, starting with “The Chinese American Family Album” in 1994.Oxford University PressSuch recognition was typical of the Hooblers’ output for young readers, which drew on extensive research but presented history and personalities in compelling, age-appropriate language.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert E. Ginna Jr., Whose Article Bolstered U.F.O. Claims, Dies at 99

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      A founding editor of People, he also served as editor in chief of Little, Brown and produced films. But his public image was defined by a 1952 story for Life.Robert E. Ginna Jr., a founding editor of People magazine, a book editor and a film producer whose 1952 Life magazine article provoked a frenzy by validating the idea that flying saucers might exist and could have visited Earth from outer space, died on March 4 at his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y.His death was confirmed by his son, Peter St. John Ginna. He was 99.Mr. Ginna (pronounced gun-NAY) enjoyed a wide-ranging, eight-decade career. As the editor in chief of Little, Brown, he persuaded the acclaimed novelist James Salter to shift from screenplays to books and discovered Dr. Robin Cook as an author of thrillers. He also produced movies and was part of the team that started People as a highbrow showcase for profiles of cultural figures like Graham Greene and Vladimir Nabokov, but quit when the magazine descended into what he viewed as celebrity fluff.To the general public, though, he was perhaps best known for an article he wrote with H.B. Darrach Jr. for the April 7, 1952, issue of Life magazine. The cover featured an alluring photograph of Marilyn Monroe under the headline “There Is a Case for Interplanetary Saucers.”The April 7, 1952, issue of Life magazine featured a seductive photo of Marilyn Monroe juxtaposed with the now-infamous headline “There Is a Case for Interplanetary Saucers.”Philippe Halsman/Life Magazine, via Magnum PhotosTo Mr. Ginna’s eternal dismay, the article made him a target for U.F.O. buffs and kooks. Headlined “Have We Visitors From Space?,” it examined 10 reports of unidentified flying object sightings, followed by an unequivocal assessment from the German rocket expert Walther Riedel: “I am completely convinced that they have an out-of-world basis.”While reports of U.F.O.s in the late 1940s were often trivialized, Phillip J. Hutchison and Herbert J. Strentz wrote in American Journalism in 2019: “By the early 1950s, however, more substantial human-interest features embraced the idea that U.F.O. reports might correspond to extraterrestrial Earth visitors. A widely cited April 7, 1952, Life magazine feature titled ‘Have We Visitors From Space?’ represents one of the most influential examples of the latter trend.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Dyslexic Comedian Walks Into a Recording Booth …

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      Phil Hanley stood in a womb-like studio, psyching himself up to record the final section of his memoir. Peppermint tea, check. Hands in meditation position, check. Sheaf of highlighted, color coded pages printed in extra large type, check.But when Hanley leaned into the microphone to read from “Spellbound,” his candid account of growing up dyslexic, he sounded more like an anxious student than the seasoned comedian he is.He eked out 13 words, then stumbled, exhaling sharply in triplicate, Lamaze style. He tried again, the same sentence with slightly different intonation. Puff, puff, puff. And again, making it through three more words. Puff, puff, puff. On his fourth attempt, Hanley choked up.It was his 60th hour in the booth at his publisher’s office, not counting practice sessions at home. Most authors are at the studio for a fraction of this time; the average recording length for a 7.5 hour audiobook is 15 hours. But because Hanley has severe dyslexia, the process was protracted. And complicated. And emotional.“The most traumatic moments of my life have been having to read out loud,” Hanley said. “I can’t even express how tiring it is to do the audiobook. It feels like chiseling a marble statue with a screwdriver and a broken hammer.”Nevertheless, he was hellbent on reading his own story. What would it say to the dyslexic community if he handed off the mic?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Anne Kaufman Schneider, 99, Ardent Keeper of Her Father’s Plays, Dies

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      She shepherded the works of George S. Kaufman from the 20th century into the next, encouraging regional theater productions and helping to steer two of them to Broadway.Anne Kaufman Schneider, who shepherded the plays of her father, George S. Kaufman, a titan of 20th-century American theatrical wit, into the 21st century with an acerbic sagacity all her own, died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 99.Her executor, Laurence Maslon, confirmed her death.“Headstrong girls are difficult,” Ms. Kaufman Schneider once told The New York Times, “but that was the source of my good relationship with my father. And it started early. Because there wasn’t any baby talk. We went to the theater together starting when I was 4. Now I have made his work my agenda in life.”George Kaufman’s stellar career as a hit-making playwright and stage director included winning two Pulitzer Prizes — one, in 1937, for “You Can’t Take It With You,” a comedy he created with his most constant collaborator, Moss Hart; the other, in 1932, for “Of Thee I Sing,” a satirical political musical co-written with Morrie Ryskind to a score by George and Ira Gershwin.George S. Kaufman, left, with Moss Hart, his most constant collaborator, in 1937, the year their play “You Can’t Take It With You” won the Pulitzer Prize.Underwood Archives/Getty ImagesEven so, after his death in 1961 at the age of 71, Kaufman was a hard sell for theatrical revivals.“Very little happened at all,” Ms. Kaufman Schneider once recalled, “until Ellis Rabb revived ‘You Can’t Take It With You’ for the A.P.A./Phoenix Theater in 1965. Ellis proved that these are classic American plays.” (Founded by Mr. Rabb, an actor and director, the A.P.A., formally the Association of Producing Artists, was a Broadway entity notable for mounting revivals after it merged with the Phoenix Theater, another Broadway house.)Ms. Kaufman Schneider proceeded to oversee her father’s renaissance over the next 50-plus years — a term of service that outdistanced his own living stewardship of his career.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Burned Out, Davey Wreden Tried to Heal by Making the Cozy Wanderstop

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      Nothing moves quickly in Wanderstop. To make a single cup of tea in the new video game is a meditative ritual of deliberate steps.The recovering hero, Alta, has to forage for tea leaves, dry out those leaves, plant seeds for fruit to flavor the tea, water those seeds, watch the plant grow, harvest the fruit individually, and then, with a fantastical apparatus the player traverses using rolling ladders, heat up the water, drain it into a brewing pot, throw the ingredients in one by one, go to a shelf of bespoke mugs, select one, place it under a tap and — finally — pour.There is recognition for doing so without spilling a single drop but no punishment if it is not perfect. It is not that kind of game.Davey Wreden, the 36-year-old writer and director of Wanderstop, has not released a stand-alone game in a decade. He burned out after commercial success with The Stanley Parable (2013), an absurd meditation on cubicle life and choice that has been cited as an inspiration for the TV show “Severance,” and artistic acclaim with the game’s follow-up.Wanderstop was supposed to be different from those mind-bending works, a calming experience set at a woodland tea shop.It did not end up that way.“I started out trying to make this game in a way that it wasn’t going to be a complex story about me and my life, and I failed to do that,” Wreden said. “The more that I began having Alta speak the words in my own head, the more compelling it got.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More