Jean Hanff Korelitz in conversation with Lutyens & Rubinstein Bookshop Manager Claire Harris - chatting all things Helene Hanff and the new Manderley Press edition of her book Letter from New York: a collection of essays read out on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour in the 1970s and 1980s.
We are so pleased that the New York Times best-selling author Jean Hanff Korelitz will join the team at Lutyens & Rubinstein bookshop in London on May 11th for a daylight event.
Jean will be chatting about her cousin Helene Hanff, and the brand-new Manderley Press edition of her book Letter from New York with shop manager Claire Harris.
The event is free but we gently encourage you to buy a book where possible - this title will not be officially published until September 2023, so this is your chance to grab an early-bird copy (and support a superb indie bookshop)!
Tickets/books can be reserved on the Lutyens & Rubinstein website.
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Letter from New York
By Helene Hanff
Introduced by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Illustrated by Bruce Eric Kaplan
A bit about the book
Manderley Press is delighted to announce the publication of a brand-new edition of Helene Hanff’s Letter from New York – another literary jewel from the author of 84, Charing Cross Road.
To showcase this wonderful book, we commissioned the New York Times bestselling author Jean Hanff Korelitz (The Plot) to pen a new introduction – she is a cousin of Helene Hanff’s, and was inspired to become a writer after meeting her as a teenager.
The front cover was specially designed by New Yorker illustrator Bruce Eric Kaplan, also a fan of the author and a resident of New York City too.
Helene Hanff read aloud these stories of her life in New York for BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. This book is a collection of selected scripts from this series, through which the author offers us a glimpse into her own everyday tales of the city.
What started as a 6-month trial in 1978 turned into a 6-year project, during which time Helene Hanff captivated radio audiences with her monthly broadcasts – each one a love-letter to her adopted city of NYC.
Written in her trademark whimsical and upbeat style, Helene Hanff transports us right to the heart of Manhattan in the 1980s, describing her favourite places, people and pets with gentle humour, and introducing the reader to the ups and downs of life in a high-rise apartment building in New York City (“the last small town in America”).
Long before the cast of Friends – and Sarah Jessica Parker’s iconic evocation of life in the city – recreated a New York existence for us to experience vicariously, these 5-minute vignettes were the perfect way for international readers and native New Yorkers alike to revel in the quotidian, and the glamour, of city life. And to discover the unexpected hidden gems – and treasured traditions – of New York City.
Letter from New York is still a delight to read, 40 years after it was first written – a timeless and beguiling tale of everyday life in this great city, by one of the best-loved authors of the twentieth-century.