- Michael Cunningham talks with Boston Now about how books are adapted for the screen. Alas, Cunningham offers no answers on why music from Philip Glass is the only reason why film critics take bloated literary adaptations so seriously.
- R.U. Sirius talks with a post-prison Josh Wolf.
- Tod Goldberg pens a love letter to US Airways.
- Early video of Indiana Jones 4. I can think of a better use of bandwidth than disseminating a large video file of Lucas and Spielberg drinking champagne and sitting in an old car. What next? A 350 MB Quicktime file of Harrison Ford passing a kidney stone?
- Dan Wickett rolls out his sixth litblog panel.
- Okay, you celebrity news obsessives, listen up. If Elizabeth Crane, who is perhaps one of the more obsessive of the obsessives, thinks that Paris Hilton is beneath her notice, then there’s a pretty good chance that the news is sizably insignificant.
- Richard Nash: “Using a variant on the word ‘fuck’ in an interview with Salon will triple your company’s website traffic.” Future Salon interviewees take note.
- Alas, this blog is rated a mere R. I’m clearly going to have to do better to match Gwenda’s NC-17. I apologize for not being sleazy enough. More dick jokes to come!
- Dale Kreiger looks into the technological tools of writers.
- Michael Chabon’s shtekeleh.
- Pete Anderson reports that Other Voices is no more.
- Rick Kleffel podcasts Susanna Moore.
- If you’re a regular of Charlie Anders’ excellent Writers with Drinks series, Charlie is looking for feedback on rethinking it.
- I somehow missed this, but Across the East River Ed has reviewed On Chesil Beach.
- The Shining cuckoo clock. (via Quiddity)
- Josh Glenn points to the Critical Compendium as a good source to track reviews.
- There’s now a new reading stunt afoot: The Book Awards Reading Challenge. (via A Life in Books)
- Mr. Teachout, please see Raging Bull immediately. For the record and perhaps rather frighteningly, I’ve seen all but four films on the list. I feel particularly embarrassed for not having seen Murnau’s Sunrise.
- Andrew Wheeler offers an early look at the new Tom Perrotta novel.
- Also from Wheeler, who got it from Max: a PDF of Murakami’s 1973 novel, Pinball.
- Clive James: “My feeling that I would have been a happier man if I had been a painter and indeed a happier man if I had been a gravedigger.” Give James points for honesty, but run the other way when he approaches you with a shove for “yard work.”
- Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights has been named the best children’s book of the past 70 years.
- Rent Girl is heading to Showtime.
- Kate Christensen talks about MFK Fisher on NPR. (via Bibliophile Bullpen)
- Andrew O’Hagan gets the Leonard Lopate treatment. (via Bookslut)
- Sarah Bradford reviewed Tina Brown’s book for the Spectator. The Spectator refused to print it, without citing a specific reason. The Guardian has run the review. I didn’t find Bradford’s review to be overly pugnacious. Is the Spectator pulling its punches? I am trying to track down the current literary editor for the Spectator, but alas, the Spectator website doesn’t load for me. I would be grateful if someone could pass along this information to me. I wish to know why the Spectator would rather run puff pieces rather than honest reviews. (Of course, if the literary editor wishes to address these questions to the public, my comments remain open.)
- Malcolm Lowry reconsidered. (via Bookninja)
- Pearl S. Buck’s lost manuscript of The Good Earth has been found! (via Bookshelves of Doom)
- Matt Cheney on “the literary establishment.”
The Big-Ass Roundup
– June 27, 2007Posted in: Roundup
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Thanks as always for the plug sir (glad that fiver founds its way to you!)
When you get those dick jokes written, send a few my way, the EWN Blog didn’t even get a 13 added to its PG rating.