Wednesday, September 25, 2013

12 Unpublished Novels We Wish We Could Read


The list, care of Lit Reactor.

From said list...

'Prince Jellyfish' by Hunter S. Thompson
What we know: This was the Gonzo God's first attempt at The Great American Novel, written during his early 20s when he was still naive and optimistic. Or as naive and optimistic someone who had been kicked out of high school and served time for armed robbery could be. The Guardian described the book as "an autobiographical novel about a boy from Louisville, going to the big city and struggling against the dunces to make his way." [1] Sounds like quintessential Thompson. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to touch it. He abandoned it and moved to Puerto Rico to work on his second novel (which wouldn't be published until 1998), The Rum Diary.
Why we want to read it: It's a first novel written by a twenty-something, but it's a first novel written by a twenty-something Hunter S. Thompson. And The Rum Diary was pretty good.

7 Badass Literary Heroines


The list, care of the Huffington Post.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Bedtime Story Dying Out


The traditional bedtime story is dying out, a new study has suggested, as a third of parents reveal they never read their young children a story at night. 

From a piece in the Telegraph...



Only 64 per cent of parents with children under seven read to them at all, while a mere one in five of those get a book out every night. 
The study shows the average modern day child gets three bedtime stories a week. 
But a quarter of a million children aged seven or under – around four per cent – do not own a single book.

The Art of Stop Motion Animation


Great Expectations


Thursday, September 12, 2013

Photographs of Disasters that Occurred Before 1920


John Grisham's 3 Must Haves for Novel Writing


The list, care of Writer's Digest.

From said list...

The first is to have an elevator pitch. 

 If you can’t describe what a book is about in one or two sentences, you don’t have a story worth telling. For example, to pitch The Firm: “Young lawyer fresh out of law school gets a dream job that turns out to be a nightmare.” Or, for The Confession: “How can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?”

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

107 Regional Slang Words


Shakespeare to Be Retold By Famous Authors


Margaret Atwood retelling The Tempest? Howard Jacobson The Merchant of Venice?

From a piece in the Guardian...

Award-winning novelist and critic Jacobson has chosen The Merchant of Venice, one of Shakespeare's most controversial plays, which can be read as antisemitic. "For an English novelist, Shakespeare is where it all begins. For an English novelist who also happens to be Jewish, The Merchant of Venice is where it all snarls up," Jacobson said.

"Only a fool would think he has anything to add to Shakespeare. But Shakespeare probably never met a Jew; the Holocaust had not yet happened, and antisemitism didn't have a name. Can one tell the same story today, when every reference carries a different charge? There's the challenge. I quake before it."

Canadian novelist and critic Atwood, whose latest book, MaddAddam, explores gene-splicing between humans and animals, opted for The Tempest. "It has always been a favourite of mine, and working on it will be an invigorating challenge. Is Caliban the first talking monster? Not quite, but close …" she said.

Thursday, September 05, 2013

Great Cocktail Moments in Literature


The list, care of Smithsonian Magazine.

From said list...

“Mad Men” fans may recognize the gimlet as Betty Draper’s drink of choice, but her own generation likely knew it from Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel The Long Goodbye. “A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else,” Terry Lennox tells the detective Philip Marlowe. “It beats martinis hollow.”

Lennox’s one-to-one ratio is too sweet for most modern drinkers. These days, gimlets are typically made with fresh lime juice instead of Rose’s syrupy cordial (and with vodka instead of gin). But Rose’s did have an edge in shelf life: as seen in Green Hills of Africa and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, Ernest Hemingway opted for gimlets on safari, probably because Rose’s was less likely to spoil.

13 Reasons You Should Always Buy Used Books


The list, care of the Huffington Post.

Wednesday, September 04, 2013

Fantagraphics Profiled


Seattle Weekly does the honors.

From the piece...

That move turned out to be extraordinary well-timed, says Larry Reid, the longtime Seattle art-world curator and promoter who now runs the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Georgetown. “I was a voracious consumer when Fantagraphics moved here,” he recalls. “Peter [Bagge] had a party for them at his house, and I immediately pestered Gary and Kim to have a comics show at the Center on Contemporary Art.” 

Two years later that show became Misfit Lit, Fantagraphics published the catalog, and Reid took it on tour around the country—all of which helped cement the grunge/comics/Seattle alliance in the national consciousness. “Music, graphics, and comics all came together” in the early ’90s, says Reid. From that convergence, Fantagraphics “became a part of our cultural heritage.”

Lifting the Veil of Mystery from J.D. Salinger