Norwegian novelist Finn Carling has passed on. Carling specialized in alienation and misfits ignored by mainstream society. Book & Writers has a profile on the man.
The film rights for Clive Woodall's One for Sorrow: Two for Joy have been sold to Disney for $1 million. But the incredible thing is that Woodall still hasn't quit his day job at the supermarket. What's the matter, Clive? You can't honestly tell me that there a shortage of supermarket managers in the UK.
The Times is on the ball this morning with those snappy headlines.
Shakespeare's will is now available online (PDF). Unfortunately, there's nothing left of his estate to distribute. However, fortune hunters hoping to score some loot are advised to pursue a bride-to-be in the Hamptons and, as a general practice, consider more recent family lineage.
An Arthur Conan Doyle archive has landed at a London law firm. There are 3,000 items, many of them previously disappeared into protracted legal disputes from forty years ago. But more importantly, there's a treasure trove of manuscripts (80% of which have never been published), including an early sketch of A Study in Scarlet. Also making its appearance in the collection is the first known piece of Holmes/Watson slash fiction. Who knew that Doyle penned this himself?
HarperCollins has attacked Soft Skull's How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. They claim the title's too close to Michael Moore's book. Meanwhile, the fate of the soon-to-be-published How to Prevent Stupid White Men (Who Are Also Quite Rich) from Selling Lots of Fulminating, Unreadable Political Books Clutched by Undergrads and Packed with Generalizations remains undetermined.
Franck Le Calvez has lost his Finding Nemo suit. The judge noted that the two disputed fictional fish have different smiles. Moreover, Le Calvez's fish is French and, thus, frightening to American children.
Alex Beam revisits the myth of Deborah Skinner, B.F.'s daughter, who was, as the legend goes, purportedly locked in a box for several years. Lauren Slater has a new book, Opening Skinner's Box, that attempted to determine the truth behind the abuse. Slater never found her. But Beam apparently did. And Skinner is now hopping mad with libel. Slater claims that "she didn't have access to an electronic database."
In 2000? Yeah, right.
Beyond that, there's a little something called the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Beyond that, even in the early 1990s, one could find CD-ROM archives of newspapers in such hicktowns as Sacramento. (And I say that from personal experience.)
Skinner herself responded in the Guardian last week, stating that she was not a lab rat.
Whatever the outcome of the Skinner imbroglio, the Beam story illustrates the importance of being thorough with the facts. And it's advice that might be beneficial to blogs. If lit blogs are to grow and develeop, then this also demonstrates the importance of tracking sources, which means trying to acknowledge who first found the links whenever possible. Beyond simple courtesy, there's also the consideration that the person genuinely interested in the topic might have done additional work or have additional expertise not publicly posted.
A Belgian museum is hosting an Alan Moore exhibition, but Moore won't be going. The Independent has the usual Moore biographical background, but does have some additional news about Hollywood and future work.
And there's more comparative info on the new Nancy Drew, addressed in letter and infographic.
Posted by DrMabuse at March 16, 2004 07:42 AM<<Who knew that Doyle penned this himself?>>
Please, the author's surname is "Conan Doyle", not simply "Doyle". Think of it as "hyphenated, minus the hyphen," like "Lloyd George."
The Scotsman article, at the link you provide, uses the correct surname, seven times (including the headline).
However, it does not refer to any such "slash fiction" as you mention. Were you trying to be humorous?
Posted by: Raven at April 18, 2004 03:19 AM