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Open Book

Baldwin Burns Strong

James Baldwin and Medgar Evers in a 1963 image by Steve Schapiro.Credit...Steve Schapiro

One of the happier literary occurrences of recent years is the vibrant revival of James Baldwin’s work — which certainly never went away but has been front and center thanks, in part, to dispiriting headlines about race relations in the United States; Ta-Nehisi Coates’s best-selling “Between the World and Me” (inspired in structure and spirit by Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”); and the documentary “I Am Not Your Negro,” narrated entirely by Samuel L. Jackson reading Baldwin’s own words.

“The Fire Next Time” (1963) is, among other things, one of the most powerful books that can just about fit in one’s pocket. Much less totable is a new limited-edition letterpress version of the book, oversize and filled with stunning photos from the civil rights era by Steve Schapiro, issued by the art publisher Taschen.

In a new introduction, Representative John Lewis of Georgia writes of Schapiro’s work: “All at once he conveys the passion of the moment and the strategic action, but also the simple dignity and the evident humanity of these characters of history, rejected in their own time but lauded for their contribution today.”

Fewer than 2,000 copies were printed, priced at $200 each. But all readers can hear Schapiro discuss the book and his experiences at two scheduled events in New York City: at the Strand Book Store on May 15, and at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on May 17.

Quotable

“I’m not sure how interested I am in life, as much as trying to release energy in fiction. The problem with life, if you’re a novelist, is life is pretty thin, I mean our day-to-day lives, if you wrote it all down.”— Colm Toibin, in an interview with Houston Public Media

A Degree in Metal

The music writer Ian Gittins has put on his lab coat to produce “The Periodic Table of Heavy Rock,” a taxonomy patterned after the arrangement of chemical elements. “Transition metals are ductile, malleable and conduct heat and electricity,” Gittins writes. “Primarily, they bond with other elements as they alter their molecular structures. Put simply, the Stooges may never have begat Nirvana had they not passed through the Pixies.”

Gittins takes us through the combustible metals (like the “original human firework, Iggy Pop”) and the reactive metals (like Soundgarden, “grounded firmly in the epic blues of Led Zeppelin and the morose grind of Black Sabbath”). By the time you move past the waste gases (Foreigner, REO Speedwagon) to the precious gases (Kiss, Meat Loaf), you might feel you really are brushing up on both science and music from your teenage years. And for those who fear a quiz, the book comes with a poster for easy reference at a glance.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Page 4 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Baldwin Burns Strong. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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