Marcel Proust

(Newser) - Some of history's greatest writers have relied on "food for thought." For Truman Capote, a daily regimen of coffee, tea, sherry, and martinis was his path to creative greatness. Others kept it simpler: Marcel Proust relied on espresso, while Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres swears by the...

(Newser) - Carrie Fisher’s shrink told her, “If you worked in a supermarket they would’ve institutionalized you at 20,” she recalls. Not so in Hollywood, where the erstwhile Princess Leia suffered through drug addiction, manic depression, and failed relationships—her own and her parents’. But electroshock therapy helped...

(Newser) - Seeing his oeuvre on screen, you might believe action hero Keanu Reeves has trouble finishing a sentence. But after spending a day with the actor, Jeff Gordinier reports for Details that the star of films from Bill and Ted to The Matrix has in fact finished Proust's quotidian memoir and...

(Newser) - Forget the coma-inducing titles that lit lovers keep telling you to read, Richard Wilson writes in his book, Can’t Be Arsed: 101 Things Not to Do Before You Die. He lists the top 10 clunkers in the Daily Telegraph:

• Ulysses, James Joyce: notoriously hard, so why bother?
• Lord

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