November 26, 1999

'New York Times' Cancels Unusual Ad for Comic Novel by Boston U.'s Leslie Epstein; University Librarians Take On Editors of Costly Journal

Leib Goldkorn's long-anticipated date with The New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani will have to wait until another day.

Goldkorn is the irascible 94-year-old title character in Ice Fire Water: A Leib Goldkorn Cocktail (W.W. Norton), the new comic novel by Leslie Epstein. In one chapter, Goldkorn asks Ms. Kakutani out to lunch at Manhattan's Plaza Hotel to thank her for a sterling review. Mistakenly believing that she's Finnish, rather than of Japanese