Lauren Bacall wrote three memoirs over the years. The last one was released in 2005. She said of loving Bogart, “I’d suddenly had this fairy-tale life, at such a young age, who would have thought something like that could happen?”
“Writing a book is the most complete experience I’ve ever had,” she said.
Whit Stillman’s next work will be on Amazon.com. A TV pilot episode for a potential series, “The Comopolitans,” will be available through Amazon Studios on August 28. See a cute preview here.
“This has elements of all three of the first films,” he tells Vanity Fair, referring to his 1990 debut, 1994’s Barcelona and 1998’s The Last Days of Disco. “It’s very much like the fourth film, of those three.” He says one has to earn a living, and TV is where one can do it.
He also says he doesn’t watch TV with violence and sex, “so it knocks out almost everything.” Others say he only watches TV on airplanes.
“This summer on my way to work,” writes The Public Humanist at The Valley Advocate, “I found something just for me in a box of cast-off books on a sidewalk in downtown Northampton . . . a yellowed and fragile New York Times Book Review clipping, from April 2, 1978: a list of the books that Tolstoy was most impressed by, organized by the age at which he read them.”
The list was written in 1891 and includes selections such as Puskin’s poems: Napoleon, Gogol’s Overcoat, The Two Ivans, Nevsky Prospect, Rousseau’s Confessions, all of Trollope’s novels, and all of the Gospels in Greek. (via Open Culture)
Bob Smietana suggests we may want to fact-check our pastor’s sermons, but don’t do it during the service.
(Did you know that the father of the inventor of penicillin did not save young Winston Churchill from drowning? The things you learn!
The Amazon.com dispute with Hachette continues with full page ads in the New York Times and emails aplenty. Hachette’s Michael Pietsch writes, “This dispute started because Amazon is seeking a lot more profit and even more market share, at the expense of authors, bricks and mortar bookstores, and ourselves.
“Both Hachette and Amazon are big businesses and neither should claim a monopoly on enlightenment, but we do believe in a book industry where talent is respected and choice continues to be offered to the reading public.”
Many authors are throwing their weight into the fray. “As writers–most of us not published by Hachette–we feel strongly that no bookseller should block the sale of books or otherwise prevent or discourage customers from ordering or receiving the books they want.” Amazon argues that when paperbacks came out, publishers hated them just like cheap ebooks.
In related news, Amazon is disputing its contract with Disney and withholding pre-orders on select movies.
You know, when you find everyone around you acts like a jerk, the reason could be the common denominator–you.
James K.A. Smith sets up the next issue of Comment by asking, “What if secularism is loudest precisely because it is a final cry before it is unveiled as implausible and unsustainable? Doesn’t the emperor shout loudest about the beauty of his raiment precisely when he least believes it himself?”
Yale now offers a digital edition of the works of Samuel Johnson, which include this prayer recorded in 1752:
“BEFORE ANY NEW STUDY.
“NOVEMBER. Almighty God, in whose hands are all the powers of man; who givest understanding, and takest it away; who, as it seemeth good unto Thee, enlightenest the thoughts of the simple, and darkenest the meditations of the wise, be present with me in my studies and enquiries.
“Grant, O Lord, that I may not lavish away the life which Thou hast given me on useless trifles, nor waste it in vain searches after things which thou hast hidden from me.
“Enable me, by thy Holy Spirit, so to shun sloth and negligence, that every day may discharge part of the task which Thou hast allotted me; and so further with thy help that labour which, without thy help, must be ineffectual, that I may obtain, in all my undertakings, such success as will most promote thy glory, and the salvation of my own soul, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.” (via Thomas Kidd)
Yvonne Zipp says Lev Grossman’s The Magician’s Land reminds her of Lewis’ The Last Battle while remaining original.
“I bet it’s because of heresy like that that the world is ending. Your earthy, irreverent sense of humor has doomed us all,” King Josh tells Queen Janet. (If Peter was “The Magnificent,” and Edmund was “The Just,” in Narnia, Janet of Fillory should just be known as “The Awesome.”)
If that’s not enough of a selling point, The Magician’s Land also features a motto that should be emblazoned on T-shirts, embroidered on pillows, and hung on walls in dorm rooms everywhere: “Give a nerd enough time and a door he can close and he can figure out pretty much anything.”
“When Truman Capote called In Cold Blood a ‘nonfiction novel,’ he meant something very specific: that the book used the techniques of fiction but was completely factual,” explains Ben Yagoda, but today many people appear willing to talk of fiction or nonfiction “novels” as if that word means a bound work of any form. In high school, this usage is everywhere, and it’s prevalent in college too. Have you ever done it or seen it done? (via Mark Bertrand)
Amazon owes 2/3 of the eBook market in part because they have followed their dreams to reach the unreachable star. Now we all may get burned.
Fantasy author Brent Weeks says the reality for many readers is that if they don’t see a book on Amazon, they assume it isn’t available. With eBooks, they may not know where to else to go to buy them. Amazon is also attracting authors as a publisher, not just a distributor. with promises of high royalty percentages. This and other factors are hurting big and small publishers alike.
“We’re at the point now where the publishing houses are being undercut by the river of indie publishing, and at some point in time the front porch is going to drop in the river. At that point maybe they’ll have to acknowledge it, but right now they just don’t want to,” attorney David Vandagriff said.