Scott H Young (Free subscription) | 14 hours ago
... top of the two World Trade Center towers. Told in the style of a heist film, the story chronicles Philippe Petit’s careful planning, infiltration into the WTC and eventually his successful high-wire performance. The movie also shows the tension Philippe has between his audacious enthusiasm for the high wire and his recognition of the dangers, and likelihood of his death in...
PBS (Free subscription) | 11/27/2009
On an August morning in 1974, a man named Philippe Petit steps off of the roof of the World Trade Center's South Tower and onto a tightrope. The act is the backdrop to Colum McCann's National Book Award-winning novel, "Let the Great World Spin."
blahblahblahscience (Free subscription) | 11/24/2009
“Odds and Evens” is the first single off The High Wire’s full-length debut The Sleep Tape which drops march 2010. this shoegaze inspired, dreamy psych-pop group must not be fond of pictures (hence this shot we found of Philippe Petit.. who by the way, actually crossed a high wire between the NY twin towers 8 [...]
aindreas.com (Free subscription) | 11/22/2009
Colum McCann author of The Dancer won the fiction prize at the U.S. National Book awards in New York during the week. For his novel Let the Great World Spin, an allegorical story inspired by the events of 9/11 and set around Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the ...
The Millions (A Blog About Books) (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009
The National Book Award winners for 2009 have been announced. The big prize for fiction went to Colum McCann for Let the Great World Spin. McCann was the highest profile name among the nominees, and his book which revolves around Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between World Trade Center towers in 1974, was generally seen [...]
ArtsBeat (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009
... McCann's lyric urban epic of a novel--set in August, 1974 in Lower Manhattan as tightrope walker Philippe Petit soars above the city on a cable strung...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 11/19/2009
Irish-born writer's novel Let the Great World Spin, focused on Philip Petit's World Trade Centre tightrope walk, acclaimed as 'gravity-defying feat' Colum McCann won the fiction prize at the National Book awards in New York last night for his novel Let the Great World Spin, an allegorical story inspired by the events of 9/11 and set around Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between...
The Irish Times (Free subscription) | 11/20/2009
... McCourt, who died in July. “I think he’s dancing upstairs,” he said.Let the Great World Spin uses Philippe Petit’s famous high-wire crossing between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in 1974 as a motif around which to assemble the stories of 10 New York characters.The judges said McCann “offers through his generosity of spirt and lyrical gifts an ecstatic vision of the human...
Reading matters (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin has been selected as the book of the year by the editors at Amazon.com. They describe it as "a rich and moving novel of New York City in the '70s, told in ten distinctive voices from all corners of the city whose lives connect and divide against the backdrop of Philippe Petit's audaciously graceful tightrope walk between the Twin Towers."...
Bitch News (Free subscription) | 11/16/2009
... between World Trade Center towers. This extraordinary, real-life feat by French funambulist Philippe Petit becomes the touchstone for stories that briefly submerge you in ten varied and intense lives–a street priest, heroin-addicted hookers, mothers mourning sons lost in war, young artists, a Park Avenue judge. All their lives are ordinary and unforgettable, overlapping at the edges,...
Reel Fanatic (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
... out on a magical documentary. Director James Marsh mixed live footage from tightrope artist Philippe Petit's several stunts with "Cops" style re-enactments that certainly would have been disastrous in lesser hands to make something truly magical. Rent it immediately if you haven't seen it. Now, however, it seems that Marsh is jumping into fictional features with something...
Jacket Copy (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
... taggers; a group of early computer programmers. Their lives intersect, however obliquely, through Philippe Petit's astonishing highwire walk between the towers of the World Trade Center. McCann's novel, which echoes with resonances of Sept. 11, is nominated for the National Book Award; he talked to Jacket Copy from his home office in New York. Jacket Copy: Philippe Petit's...
warrior ant press (Free subscription) | 11/07/2009
Books fall from trees and Warrior Ant Press rakes them up and bags them for your fall enjoyment. Let the Great World Spin. Colum McCann.2009, Random House. A book that stretches a long thin wire between Philippe Petit's wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center and 9/11 and dares to take the reader along the route. With a cast of New Yorkers that makes you long for a...
Empire News (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
James Marsh won plaudits and a Best Documentary Oscar for Man On Wire, the story of tightrope artist Philippe Petit and his amazing walk between the towers of the World Trade Centre in 1974. But now he's abandoning the real world for a supernatural thriller called The Vatican Tapes, which is sadly not about the Pope's '80s mix selections.
The Agitation of the Mind (Free subscription) | 11/05/2009
... the film’s reality. Intercut with shots of the towers being slowly assembled are scenes of Philippe Petit’s childhood, and how he first discovered his dream of the twin towers by seeing a photo of the proposed structures in a dentist’s waiting room. From then on he forgot his toothache and devoted himself to the achievement of his ambition: tight-rope walking across...
