On Our RadarEverybody’s talking about:The new “Sense and Sensibility” film adaptation is out this weekend. The staff writer Rebecca Mead, reporting from the U.K., makes note of a critical difference between this movie and the original book:“In all the many reworkings of Jane Austen’s novels, from ‘Clueless’ to ‘Longbourn,’ there’s one offstage character whose story has as yet gone unmined: Eliza Williams, in ‘Sense and Sensibility.’ She’s the sixteen-year-old ward of Colonel Brandon, who has been seduced, impregnated, and abandoned by the charming John Willoughby. By the time Marianne Dashwood unwisely falls for Willoughby, the ruined Eliza and her inconvenient infant have been dispatched to the obscurity of the countryside.“The new movie adaptation, directed by Georgia Oakley, deals with this teen-pregnancy subplot by eliminating it: for contemporary audiences, it’s one thing for Willoughby to ghost Marianne—so far, so recognizable—but quite another for him to have sex with a young girl ten years his junior, then to claim in his defense that just because he was a libertine doesn’t make her a saint. Yuck. Our sensibilities may be able to cope with Willoughby as a cad, but not as—to put it generously—a creep. Eliza has been failed not just by Willoughby but also by her supposed protector Brandon, who goes on to marry Marianne. Left holding the baby, what would be Eliza’s version of the story?”Coming soon:Lawrence Wright, a New Yorker staff writer since 1992, has a new book out on October 20th called “Redemption: Faith, Justice, and Sisterhood on Death Row.” Like his piece for the magazine, it’s about the relationship between a group of Texas nuns and the death-row inmates of a women’s prison.The first-ever authorized biography of Larry David is also out on the 20th: “Emperor of Nothing,” by Blake J. Harris.P.S. Also appearing at the New Yorker Festival: the Pulitzer Prize nominee Ben Lerner—the author of “Transcription”—and Valeria Luiselli, whose latest book, “Beginning Middle End,” is a finalist for this year’s National Book Award for Fiction. Newsletter readers receive a twenty-per-cent discount on tickets to this event with the code BOOKS20. ?