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The Laughorist (Free subscription) | 12/04/2009
Sure, you're beginning to think of me as a Twenty Something HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA. Today, let's try Twenty Names. I'm a bit of a name dropper (more than a bit; and does it not give evidence of a certain character flaw, an obsequiousness built on flimsy moorings'). I will be linear this time and limit myself to those I have met or have seen in person, even en passant , say, on a Manhattan street, or in an...
Explore : Beverly Cleary,
Cinema,
Elliott Gould,
Fine Arts,
Henry Roth,
Isaac Asimov,
Jerry Garcia,
John Updike,
Joseph Heller,
Kurt Vonnegut,
Madeleine L'Engle,
Meryl Streep,
Mona Simpson,
Peter Ustinov,
Theodor Seuss Geisel,
Tom Wolfe,
Victor Borge,
William F. Buckley Jr.,
William Maxwell,
Woody Allen
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The Mark on the Wall (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
Just noticed this: on Bookforum 's webpage, Jane Ciabattari 's article, "Writing the West." She profiles five authors, five novels: Oakley Hall ( Warlock , of course.), Dashiell Hammet (Pinkertons! Butte, Montana!), Jim Harrison, Richard Ford and Annie Proulx. excerpt: The sparsely populated mile-high plains, bowl-shaped valleys, and jagged mountain ranges of Wyoming, Montana, and other western...
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The Tart of Fiction / FictionBitch (Free subscription) | 11/01/2009
Today in the Observer Tim Adams reviews Beginners, the unexpurgated version of Raymond Carver's second story collection, published by Gordon Lish as What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. He finds the differences startling, but that the 'new' version is nevertheless 'an extraordinary book, more generous and rambling in tone than its distilled counterpart', more nuanced, yet 'still recognizably...
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Sylvia Plath Info (Free subscription) | 11/01/2009
The good people at the Lilly Library quietly acquired some of Trevor Thomas' papers earlier this year. The T. Thomas mss, ca. 1976-1990, "consist of the correspondence, writings, legal depositions, poetry, typescript of his autobiography, and poetry of Trevor Thomas, b. South Wales, 1907. Appointed Keeper of the Department of Ethnology in the City of Liverpool Free Public museum, Thomas became...
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oneXtwo Horse racing news (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
Jumps racing this afternoon in England at Haydock - the first N.H. meeting there of the new season- and in Ireland at Punchestown, where several promising types will be in action. There are the usual huge fields here, the exception being the first race, a novice hurdle at 14.15 CET, where 2 above average performers have scared off most of the opposition - Some Present (Tony Mullins/ Davy Russell) and...
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Pepys' Diary (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
Up, and to the office all the morning. At noon Sir W. Batten told me Sir Richard Ford would accept of one-third of my profit of our private man-of-war , and bear one-third of the charge, and be bound in the Admiralty , so I shall be excused being bound, which I like mightily of, and did draw up a writing, as well as I could, to that purpose and signed and sealed it, and so he and Sir R. Ford are to...
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THE WEEKLY VICE (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ( The Weekly Vice ) - Jessica Burrell , 23, and her boyfriend Carl Broerman , 33, were arrested Thursday after their 2-year-old son arrived to the hospital with severe burns to 12% of his body. Deplorable home conditions and an overturned space heater are blamed. According to police, an investigation was launched when a 2-year-old boy arrived at UPMC Mercy Hospital with severe...
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A Writer's Desk (Free subscription) | 10/15/2009
Write short stories. Editor Alan Rinzler discusses why book publishers love short stories. From the piece... Book publishers take chances on new writers Agents and editors search these literary journals and magazines for new authors. And every year publishers take chances on new writers who aren’t particularly famous yet, but end up surprising everyone with a big hit. For example, Farrar, Straus...
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Isak (Free subscription) | 10/14/2009
The new issue of PEN America looks to be a good one. Taking "Make Believe" as its theme, its bringing together essays, poetry, fiction, drama and interviews to reflect on "the question of belief in all (or many) of its forms." Among the content available online: "Rapture Children," fiction by Sigrid Nunez "Father Chinedu," essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie "Realms...
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O Danny Boy (Free subscription) | 10/14/2009
Quotes from The Sportswriter by Richard Ford. Highly recommended (as are the sequels). For your life to be worth anything you must sooner or later face the possibility of terrible, searing regret. Though you must also manage to avoid it or your life will be ruined. (p. 4) Sometimes we do not really become adults until we suffer a good whacking loss, and our lives in a sense catch up with is and wash...
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Times Online (Free subscription) | 10/08/2009
Disturbing images of the effects of taking cocaine will be shown in a television advertising campaign beginning tonight (Richard Ford writes).
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Arts Admin (Free subscription) | 10/06/2009
It was another grand day out at the Red Cross booksale . I picked up an irrational amount of fiction - Hemingway, Durrell, Styron, Toni Morrison, short stories by Richard Ford and Lorrie Moore, Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby (Was I pleased that it was in the old Penguin English Library with the orange spine to match my other old Dickens paperbacks? Yes). Most interesting finds: A 1951 edition of Alfred...
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NewPages Blog (Free subscription) | 10/05/2009
From American Book Review:Richard Ford once said that it takes as much effort to produce a bad book as a good book.And as disheartening as that sounds, what Ford’s assertion might raise, and what most everyone who has attempted the task of a book-length work already knows, is the notion that effort alone does not ensure a book’s success, and that there are probably more ways for a good...
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AdLand Suit (Free subscription) | 09/28/2009
As a mild change of pace here at ALS, I thought I’d run you through the books I read whilst I was away, and share my thoughts thereof. First off, a couple of things I believe: anyone who wants to be a good writer needs to first be a good reader; anyone who claims they have ‘a favourite book’ isn’t to be trusted; and finally, young Suits will learn more about how to be better...
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PersonaNonData (Free subscription) | 09/27/2009
Per usual most of the following were on the twitter ( @personanondata ). Long feature article on Raymond Carver and long time editor Gordon Lish in the Observer . The pair had worked together for years – Lish, a dashing, influential literary figure once known as Captain Fiction, had published Carver's first stories in Esquire magazine. (They had met in Palo Alto, when Carver was, as his wife...
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