Today at Flavorpill, we saw the first official image from the Cartoon Network’s Thundercats reboot, which is set to debut later this year. We were intrigued by a rumor that Christian Bale is up for the part of Roland in Ron Howard’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. We almost hurled on discovering that Lady Gaga’s fragrance will be inspired by the smell of blood and semen. We found it telling that for most Americans, the most memorable part of last night’s State of the Union address was President Obama’s salmon joke. We wondered how long we’ll have to wait to have a Martin Amis sighting in Brooklyn. We watched Ron English kill Kenny. We listened to the Portland Cello Project perform an instrumental cover of Kanye West’s “All of the Lights.” And finally, we were excited to hear that Nabakov’s theory about the evolution of the Polyommatus blues — long dismissed by scientists — was actually right!
Although we’re no longer bound to become blacksmiths or bakers based on our parents’ jobs, there are some professional skills that persist from one generation to the next. We’ve recently seen the power of artistic genetics with the release of Sophie Crumb’s first book (edited by her father Robert, no less), but it seems that literary DNA is particularly potent. With the holiday season now upon us — and with it, inevitable reunions with close family and distant relatives alike — here’s a toast to ten families for whom writing is part of the inherited legacy.
This year’s 13-author strong “Man Booker Dozen” longlist was just announced, and while it doesn’t include many new names (in fact, Peter Carey has already won the Booker — twice) and there were a few notable snubs (Martin Amis, Ian McEwan), it does include several books that are recent Flavorpill favorites — most notably David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Emma Donoghue’s Room. Click through to view the final list, and leave comment if you’ve got a hunch on who will win the £50,000 literary prize.
Martin Amis is no stranger to controversy. The 60-year-old British author and so-called “public intellectual” is perhaps better known in British newspapers for pissing people off than for publishing. Thankfully his must recent book The Pregnant Widow is sexy-funny enough to launch him back into the headlines for the right reasons — but lest we get too comfortable focusing on the literature, let’s take a look back at Amis’s most divisive moments.
As The Millions noted in its 2010 book preview, the theme for the upcoming year (and beyond) seems to be posthumous publication: Roberto Bolaño, Ralph Ellison, Stieg Larsson, and David Foster Wallace — the dead gang’s all here! (OK, so technically DFW’s The Pale King isn’t meant to come out until 2011, but we couldn’t leave him out.) That said, there’s plenty of good stuff to look forward to from the living as well. After the jump, we reveal the books that we’re most excited about reading in the coming months — and tell you about a few that we’ve already devoured.
Be sure to leave your own suggestions in the comments.
Bookworms are an interesting sort. Some compulsively hoard literary nuggets until their shelves sag and creak, yet never bother to actually read their collection. Others can barely tear themselves away from the freshly-vacuumed bookstore corner in which they devour the newest Malcolm Gladwell for fear that the trip home will forever interrupt their cozy date. There are bookworms with Kindles, and bookworms juggling the four paperbacks they’re reading at once. There are bookworms who get turned on by first editions, and bookworms keen on newer, abstract renditions. There are bookworms who follow the Tao of Oprah, and others who only listen to Deepak Chopra.
But perhaps the most intriguing bookworm of all is the bibliokleptomaniac, or what we like to call the kleptobrainiac. These people are book thieves, the nerdiest outlaws this side of Hogwarts. Fascinated? Appalled? Exposed? Find out what the most shoplifted books of modern times are after the jump.
Novelist Martin Amis has no interest in the Zadie Smiths and Jonathan Safran Foers of the world, thank you very much. We wonder what he’ll think of Netherland when he finally gets around to reading it in 15 or 20 years. Proving himself to be quite the lit snob, he also reveals in this interview that he usually doesn’t read the work of students in his creative writing classes.
A few weeks back, we decided the time had come to take the Kindle out in public. We hadn’t seen any out there in the world yet, but damned if we were going to relegate it to the coffee table and keep dragging hardcovers around in the old shoulder bag. The only problem with this is that the Kindle, in this early-adoption stage, invites interruptions from strangers. “What is that?” “I’ve never seen one of those before.” “What are you doing?” Read More »
is sexy-funny enough to launch him back into the headlines for the right reasons — but lest we get too comfortable focusing on the literature, let’s take a look back at Amis’s most divisive moments.
