When doing history, understand its terms
Naomi Wolf learned during an on-air BBC interview that her understanding of a 19th century British legal term — one that underpins parts of her new book — is wrong.
“Death recorded,” which she took to mean “executed,” actually meant “pardoned,” broadcaster Matthew Sweet told her. The term, he said, “was a category that was created in 1823 that allowed judges to abstain from pronouncing a sentence of death on any capital convict whom they considered to be a fit subject for pardon. … I don’t think any of the executions you’ve identified here actually happened.”
Wolf’s book, “Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love,” said several prisoners in England were executed for sodomy. U.S. publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt says the central thesis of the book holds, and says it and Wolf are working on corrections; the book is due June 18. On Twitter, Sweet praised Wolf’s transparency in offering to tweet out her corrective research. (New York magazine)
Novelist Elliot Ackerman
served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and was awarded the Silver Star for his service as a Marine Corps platoon leader in Fallujah — the 2004 battle in which 82 American service members died. Now he has a memoir, due June 11. It’s “Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning.” In an excerpt published for Memorial Day, he juxtaposes the U.S. government language of his medal citation and “summary of action” with memories that the account stirred up. Though advance excerpts are a standard publicity move, it’s worth reading. (NYT; paywall, with initial articles free.)
Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ book is due July 16. The point of “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead,” which he wrote with Bing West, is in the subtitle; in a statement he said, “I’m old-fashioned: I don’t write about sitting Presidents, so those looking for a tell-all will be disappointed.” “Chaos” was his Marine Corps call sign. (Publishers Lunch)
Unexpected passings: A number of well-known publishing figures have died in the past couple weeks. Tony Horwitz — author of several books including “A Voyage Long and Strange,” “Confederates in the Attic” and “Spying on the South” (see today’s review) — died Monday. He was 60; his widow is the writer Geraldine Brooks. (“People of the Book”)
Mark Harril Saunders, director of the University Press of Virginia, died May 19 of a heart attack. He was 52. His book “Ministers of Fire” was named one of The Wall Street Journal’s top 10 mystery novels of 2012. Eric Brandt, assistant director and editor-in-chief of the press, told UVA Today, “His intelligence, innovation and kindness have made UVA Press a leader in digital publishing, and his devotion to UVA and Charlottesville was without parallel.”
Edmund Morris, who won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” and wrote a controversial fictionalized biography, “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,” died of a stroke at 78.
Robert L. Bernstein, who guided the growth of Random House from the mid-1960s and who founded Human Rights Watch, was 96.
For the first time, an Arabic author has won the Man Booker International Prize, for translated fiction. Jokha Alharthi, from Oman, and translator Marilyn Booth won for “Celestial Bodies,” an account of three sisters in an Oman that is gradually redefining itself after the colonial era. Alharthi has written two other novels, two collections of short fiction and a children’s book; her work has been translated also into German, Italian, Korean and Serbian. (Publishers Weekly)
New and recent
“Old-school Glory Days: Randolph-Macon College
Football 1965-1970.” From Tom Harleman of Virginia Beach, who played on the team; he reflects on “the halcyon days of our youth.” (Outskirts Press, 850 pp., $59.95). Erica J. Smith, erica.smith@pilotonline.com