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September 5, 2008 7:56:58 AM CDT

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Stories related to: literature

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  • May 2008

    • Publishers Bank On a 007 Comeback

      Wall Street Journal  |  May 8, 08 1:55 PM CDT

      Publishers Bank On a 007 Comeback

      (Newser) - This year is the centenary of author Ian Fleming's birth, but while Daniel Craig gave the James Bond movie franchise a much-needed recharge, sales of the 007 books haven't caught up. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports, the Fleming estate has commissioned respected writer Sebastian Faulks to pen a new Bond novel, Devil May Care , with an ambitious first US printing of 250,000.  More »

      Tags

      literature  • publishing  • James Bond  • Barnes and Noble  • bookstore  • Sebastian Faulks  • Ian Fleming

  • April 2008

    • 50 Favorite Cult Books

      Daily Telegraph (UK)  |  Apr 27, 08 10:53 AM CDT

      50 Favorite Cult Books

      (Newser) - It’s hard to define the "cult" book, but the Telegraph compiled 50 of the top contenders that “rewire your head.” The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (1968) Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946) Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960) More »

      Tags

      list  • book  • literature  • Hunter S. Thompson  • Jack Kerouac  • Harper Lee  • The Catcher in the Rye  • JD Salinger  • Tom Wolfe  • To Kill A Mockingbird  • On the Road

    • We Need to Talk ... About Your Books

      New York Times  |  Apr 2, 08 6:25 PM CDT

      We Need to Talk ... About Your Books

      (Newser) - Forget toothpaste habits: Sometimes “a missed—or misguided—literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast," writes Rachel Donadio in the New York Times. Pasting your literary acumen all over your MySpace page has become the norm, and not a bad one. Just be prepared when “he hadn’t even heard of Pushkin!” becomes a rallying break-up cry. More »

      Tags

      book  • literature  • romance  • relationship

  • March 2008

    • Arthur C. Clarke Is Dead at 90

      New York Times  |  Mar 18, 08 8:55 PM CDT

      Arthur C. Clarke Is Dead at 90

      (Newser) - Arthur C. Clarke, the sci-fi author who helped shape 20th-century scientific imagination, is dead at 90, the New York Times reports. The co-creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey faced post-polio syndrome in recent decades and died at his home in Sri Lanka due to breathing trouble. “No one can predict the future,” Clarke maintained, but he couldn’t resist trying—and often succeeded. More »

      Tags

      obituary  • book  • literature  • Sri Lanka  • author  • space travel  • satellites  • science fiction  • Stanley Kubrick  • Arthur C. Clarke  • polio  • 2001: A Space Odyssey

  • February 2008

    • Nabokov's Ghost: Make Buck off Laura

      Slate  |  Feb 29, 08 7:59 PM CST

      Nabokov's Ghost: Make Buck off Laura

      (Newser) - Dmitri Nabokov's decision not to destroy his famed father's unfinished manuscript followed an imagined conversation with Vladimir's ghost, writes Ron Rosenbaum for Slate. Rosenbaum, who sleuthed his way through the "to burn or not to burn" debate, was previously told by Dmitri—who hinted at the book's genius before announcing his intent to destroy it—that he would keep his decision secret. More »

      Tags

      Russia  • book  • literature  • book reviews  • fiction  • preservation  • Tom Stoppard  • Lolita  • Vladimir Nabokov  • John Banville

    • The House of Mirthlessness

      Berkshire Eagle  |  Feb 28, 08 12:19 PM CST

      The House of Mirthlessness

      (Newser) - Edith Wharton's masterpieces include The House of Mirth , but the story of her own house is much less joyous. Her estate in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, currently a museum called the Mount that chronicles her life and career, is drowning under some $9 million in debt. Now, writes the Berkshire Eagle , a bank has warned it will foreclose on the property and sell it to the highest bidder. More »

      Tags

      foreclosure  • literature  • philanthropy  • museums  • estate  • Edith Wharton

    • Don't Know Much About History...

      USA Today  |  Feb 26, 08 7:00 PM CST

      Don't Know Much About History...

      (Newser) - US teens know little history and less literature, says a study out today. Only 52% of 17-year-olds could name the theme of George Orwell's 1984, and 43% knew when the Civil War was fought. Students faired far better on topics that schools cover, however, such as Pearl Harbor and Martin Luther King Jr., USA Today reports. More »

      Tags

      education  • literature  • history  • student  • Martin Luther King Jr.  • Civil War  • George Orwell  • Pearl Harbor

    • Literary Pioneer, Filmmaker Robbe-Grillet Dead at 85

      AFP  |  Feb 18, 08 3:19 PM CST

      Literary Pioneer, Filmmaker Robbe-Grillet Dead at 85

      (Newser) - French novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet died today at 85, AFP reports. A pioneer of the “new novel” literary style, he was best known in the US as the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Last Year at Marienbad (1961). "The Academie Francaise today loses one of its most illustrious members," Nicolas Sarkozy's office said in a statement. More »

      Tags

      obituary  • literature

    • Nabokov's Last Work: Burn It?

      Times (UK)  |  Feb 14, 08 10:43 AM CST

      Nabokov's Last Work: Burn It?

      (Newser) - His works include Lolita and Pale Fire , but Vladimir Nabokov's greatest masterpiece might be an unfinished manuscript languishing in a Swiss safe deposit box. Nabokov demanded that The Original of Laura be burned after his death, but his heir has vacillated. Now that Dmitri Nabokov is hinting he might go ahead and destroy the work, the Times of London invited two authors to weigh in on its fate. More »

      Tags

      literature  • Tom Stoppard  • Vladimir Nabokov  • John Banville

    • McSweeney's Is Taking Over the World

      Times (UK)  |  Feb 6, 08 4:22 PM CST

      McSweeney's Is Taking Over the World

      (Newser) - McSweeney's, the hipper-than-thou literary quarterly founded by Dave Eggers in 1998, has become possibly the most influential American literary journal, critic and novelist Stephen Amidon writes in the London Times . Once the champ of spotting new talent, Granta magazine is now taking a backseat to Eggers' baby, and looking stale in comparison. More »

      Tags

      literature

  • January 2008

    • To an Artist Dying Young

      Times (UK)  |  Jan 25, 08 12:15 PM CST

      To an Artist Dying Young

      (Newser) - Heath Ledger's death at 28 recalls a long tradition of bright young careers snuffed out before their time, from Shelley and Keats to James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. The Romantic ideal of the doomed artist holds great appeal, Ben Macintyre writes in the Times of London, but we go too far with the "morbid celebration of pointless death and wasted genius." More »

      Tags

      literature  • Heath Ledger  • Romanticism

    • If You Really Want to Hear About It ...

      NPR  |  Jan 21, 08 7:57 PM CST

      If You Really Want to Hear About It ...

      (Newser) - Holden Caulfield was an angsty teen before James Dean and rock and roll made alientaed youth an icon. "There's really not the sense of teen culture that there is now," says the producer of "Gossip Girl." NPR takes the measure of Holden, J.D. Salinger, and the 1951 classic The Catcher in the Rye . More »

      Tags

      literature  • English  • The Catcher in the Rye  • JD Salinger

    • Cell Phone Novels Take Japan by Storm

      New York Times  |  Jan 20, 08 3:51 PM CST

      Cell Phone Novels Take Japan by Storm

      (Newser) - Japan’s literary world has been rocked by the ascendancy of cell phone novels: serial works written mainly by young women on their phone keypads. The New York Times reports five of 2007’s 10 bestsellers were cell phone novels reprinted as conventional books—despite the fact that the country’s cultural establishment has yet to accept the terse prose on familiar romantic themes as literature. More »

      Tags

      Japan  • cell phones  • literature  • novel

  • December 2007

    • Salon 's Best Books of the Year

      Salon  |  Dec 12, 07 5:30 PM CST

      Salon 's Best Books of the Year

      (Newser) - Salon chooses its favorite books of the year, looking to those it "propped up next to our bowls of breakfast cereal." The first five are fiction; the others non-fiction: "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz "Sacred Games" by Vikram Chandra "Then We Came to the End" by Joshua Ferris "Tree of Smoke" by Denis Johnson More »

      Tags

      literature

    • British Library Acquires Harold Pinter Archive

      Times (UK)  |  Dec 12, 07 2:27 PM CST

      British Library Acquires Harold Pinter Archive

      (Newser) - The British Library has bought the papers of Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning playwright, paying more than $2.2 million for 150 boxes of material, writes the Times of London. After the purchase of several British authors' archives by American universities, Pinter committed himself to finding a home in his own country for his material, which includes correspondence, scrapbooks, and at least one unpublished manuscript. More »

      Tags

      United Kingdom  • literature  • Nobel Prize  • British Library

    • Hornby Seeks YA Audience

      Washington Post  |  Dec 11, 07 2:00 PM CST

      Hornby Seeks YA Audience

      (Newser) - Nick Hornby, the British novelist best known for High Fidelity and About a Boy, is temporarily shucking characters who refuse to grow up for characters who really aren't grown up. Hornby's first young adult novel, Slam, is about a teen who gets his girlfriend pregnant and talks his problems over with his poster of skateboard legend Tony Hawk. More »

      Tags

      literature  • Tony Hawk  • young adult novel

    • Book Lovers Make Plea for Better Reviews

      New Republic  |  Dec 9, 07 4:51 AM CST

      Book Lovers Make Plea for Better Reviews

      (Newser) - The book may be in decline in our fast-changing world, one complete with electronic readers and shrinking attention spans, but the editors at New Republic will have none of it. They reject the notion that books must conform to the digital age and take newspapers to task for the decline in quality—and quantity—of book reviews. "We toy with the obsolescence of the book at our mental peril," the editors write. More »

      Tags

      Internet  • literature  • Amazon.com  • book reviews  • electronic books

    • Writer Hardwick Dead at 91

      New York Times  |  Dec 4, 07 5:05 PM CST

      Writer Hardwick Dead at 91

      (Newser) - Elizabeth Hardwick, co-founder of the New York Review of Books , died Sunday at 91, the Times reports. The Kentucky-born Hardwick moved north in 1939—“my aim was to be a New York Jewish intellectual,” she said later—and became a critical giant. "I have always written essays as if they were examples of imaginative writing, as I believe them to be," she wrote. More »

      Tags

      obituary  • literature

  • November 2007

    • NYT 's Top Reads for 2007

      New York Times  |  Nov 22, 07 5:17 PM CST

      NYT 's Top Reads for 2007

      (Newser) - Recent write-ups say Americans should read more—but where to start? Try the New York Times ' 100 notable books of 2007, ranging from fiction to poetry, essays to bios. Among the acclaimed page-turners: Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal , Ben Macintyre The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? Francisco Goldman The Bad Girl , Mario Vargas Llosa The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao , Junot Diaz Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism , John Updike More »

      Tags

      book  • literature  • fiction  • nonfiction books  • top 10  • John Updike  • Philip Roth

    • Wharton Letter Bolsters Suicide Theory

      New York Times  |  Nov 21, 07 5:47 PM CST

      Wharton Letter Bolsters Suicide Theory

      (Newser) - A recently-discovered letter by Edith Wharton provides new evidence in The House of Mirth's lingering literary mystery , suggesting that heroine Lily Bart does, in fact, intend to kill herself at the book's end, the New York Times reports. Though the ambiguous text has led many to believe she died of an accidental overdose, Wharton's letter states that a fictional "friend of mine has made up her mind to commit suicide." More »

      Tags

      book  • suicide  • literature  • letters  • biography  • Edith Wharton

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