Morning Roundup
I'm still trying to sift through all this BEA data while simultaneously engineering audio for Segundo. I hope to post more things tonight (particularly on details from various publishing houses). The goal is to get done with all this by the end of the week. In the meantime, check out Bud Parr's extremely comprehensive coverage, which crosses over with mine and covers a few booths I didn't get a chance to check out.
Here's the morning roundup:
- Terry Teachout (who sadly was out of town during BEA week) tackles "Culture in the Age of Blogging."
- Based on some recommendations from trusted people, I'm more interested in Nicole Krauss the writer then Nicole Krauss the person, but, despite my JSF mandate, even I couldn't resist this profile, which tells how the two met. Apparently, the two met on a blind date. I leave experts to conclude whether it had something to do with Mr. Foer's email skillz.
- According to a new scientific survey, successful marriages involve comparable education backgrounds, not socioeconomic strata. Interestingly, education affects the speed at which couples marry and have children. Maybe this explains all those crushes I had on teachers growing up.
- I didn't check out the Google Print booth at BEA, but IT World did.
- Clay Evans' review of Sam Weller's Bradbury bio reveals some interesting details: Bradbury traveled primarily by roller skates well into his twenties and he was a flamboyant irritant to science fiction authors.
- Apparently, some of the tales from the Brothers Grimm can be traced to women. Scholars believe that women provided these tales to Jacob and Wilhelm, and the Brothers Grimm capitalized upon these stories. Perhaps Terry Gilliam and Ehren Kruger aren't as far off with their film premise as we figured.
- Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian has received a $2 million advance. It's an elaborate multi-plotted tale about Vlad the Impaler. The film rights have been picked up by Sony and it has the Susanna Clarke/Michael Faber-style "ten years to write" label written all over it. But is it any good? Laura Miller says it's good, not great. Publishers Weekly notes that "a lot here lives up to the hype." The Los Angeles Times thinks its okay, but quibbles with the overwrought prose.
- The Telegraph speaks with Christopher Hitchens. There's the usual contrarian grenades, including Hitch confessing that he doesn't find Marilyn Monroe beautiful.
- Yet another example of BEA covered with an amateurish glitterati angle: Wynonna Judd and Kim Catrall described as "leading thinkers."
- This week's upcoming film horrors: The Banger Sisters' Bob Dolman making How to Eat Fried Worms and Akiva Goldman writing a remake of The Poseiden Adventure for Wolfgang Petersen.
- A collection of celebrities playing table tennis (via the Morning News)
- While I was out of town, a man broke the six-and-a-half-hour endurance test at the Masturbate-a-thon.
- Notepad Invaders (via Quiddity)
- Editing Hunter S. Thompson (via Kitabkhana)
Posted by DrMabuse at June 8, 2005 10:22 AM