It's about time we had a thread here about random items, news or observations... Victor Hugo's Heirs Lose Battle Against Sequels - Guardian UK
Personal Best Book List for 2008 Brilliant idea. I'll use this thread for my annual "your best books of the year" thread. So here's my Best Books of 2008 -- not the best books published this year: the best books I happened to read this year. Since it's a random thread, you can set your own rules: Best Volume of Poetry: Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End Best Novel: David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest Best Book on Current Events/Politics: Jane Mayer's The Dark Side (honorable mentions to Tom Frank for The Wrecking Crew and to Jeffrey Toobin for The Nine Best Travel Book: Henry Miller's The Air-Conditioned Nightmare. Best Religion Book: Jacques Ellul's Anarchy and Christianity Best book I can't readily classify: Ammon Shea's Reading the O.E.D.: One Man, One Year, 21,730 pages And the Grand Prize: Best soccer book: David Goldblatt's The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer honorable mention to Christopher Merrill for his 1991 (or so) book, The Grass of Another Country
Re: Harold Pinter 1930-2008 Good idea on the Book of the Year concept, Dr. W. I've read too many books to remember them all while on the road, but I'll try to post later. I will say that for someone not terribly familiar with Communist Russia, Child 44 is an absolutely fantastic read. A surprising combination of moral considerations, interpersonal relationships and some backstory on what living in the USSR was like. There's also some very, very black humor.
Today is the birthday of Richard Brautigan. He would be 74 if he were still alive: I feel horrible. She doesn’t love me and I wander around the house like a sewing machine that’s just finished sewing a turd to a garbage can lid.
Today, Feb. 3rd, is the Birthday of Gertrude Stein and of James Michener. The Zodiac could not be reached for comment.
Why does Hollywood make such crappy movies out of good books? The reason, according to slate.com: This is what the movies do to literature, typically: There's so much plot to get in that there's no time to tell the story. Perhaps it's the insecurity of Hollywood: Inflated by the borrowed prestige of books, producers and directors won't stray too far from the guide-ropes of the story. Revolutionary Road, for instance, feels less directed than curated. But in this bargain, Hollywood makes an unnecessary concession, in effect admitting that movies are dumber than books. How could we think otherwise when smart books are continually turned into witless movies? It's the ultimate head-to-head competition, and movies are the Washington Generals. Are there reverse examples, where a mediocre movie is turned into a good book? I can't think of one, though I've heard that the novelization of The Harder They Come is remarkably successful. No, until recently, I'd just about decided that film deserves its reduced reputation as the flashy, gelled-hair cousin to literature.
Horton Foote 1916-2009 Horton Foote, Chronicler of America in Plays and Film, Dies at 92 - N.Y. Times
Re: Horton Foote 1916-2009 A story from the Washington Post talks about how teen lit (and other popular fiction) is more popular than subversive texts on college campuses today:
That's funny. I stopped subscribing to the post on newyear's, and read it in the library on sundays now (thank you very much, crappy economy). But the library always took the bookworld aside and kept it behind the desk, so I didn't even know it had been discontinued. That's a major disappointment, to put it mildly.
^^^^^^^Yeah, it is too bad, mostly because the Post redesigned the Outlook section to accomodate more book reviews and the best seller lists. I loved Outlook, and it's just not the same section anymore.
I must admit that I did not catch this until today, and had been wondering where that section went. [I am away on weekends a lot and miss the Sunday paper on occassion] The quality of the Washington Post has been going down, and this move takes it a few levels lower!
The Letters of Samuel Beckett - Volume I I’ll Go On; The Letters of Samuel Beckett - N.Y. Times Book Review
In a way this makes me happy, but it also makes me a bit worried that now they're gonna start cash-cowing one of my favorite authors.
2009 Pulitzer Prizes The winners of the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced... HISTORY: ANNETTE GORDON-REED “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” BIOGRAPHY: JON MEACHAM “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House” FICTION: ELIZABETH STROUT “Olive Kitteridge” GENERAL NONFICTION: DOUGLAS A. BLACKMON “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II” DRAMA: LYNN NOTTAGE “Ruined” POETRY: W.S. MERWIN “The Shadow of Sirius”