Notes of a Defeatist

 (picture: Eric Ogden for Time)

Cormac McCarthy sits down with the Coen brothers to discuss each others respected career paths and No Country For Old Men, which I can’t wait to see.

“C.M. There are a lot of good American movies, you know. I’m not that big a fan of exotic foreign films. I think Five [...]

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Looks like it’s been a big week for Dave Eggers.

The Guardian Unlimited talks with him about being awarded one of the coveted $250,000 Heinz awards, given to recognise “extraordinary achievements by individuals”.

And, his novel You Shall Know Our Velocity has been optioned.

From Variety:

Process picks up Eggers’ ‘Velocity’

Miguel Arteta to direct adaptation

By DAVE MCNARY

Process Media [...]

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George Saunders appeared on Letterman last week to promote the release of his new book of essays—The Braindead Megaphone.

Since we lost Kurt Vonnegut this last year it’s a good thing we have George Saunders still knocking around.



tags technorati : George Saunders, humor, David Letterman, The_Braindead_Megaphone, books

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Congratulations are in order! Colby Buzzell’s My War: Killing Time In Iraq won the 2007 Lulu Blooker prize,which recognizes the best book that began as a blog on the Internet. This comes in the same week that U.S. military abruptly blocked soldiers’ access to Myspace, Facebook, MTV, YouTube, and other sites because of “bandwidth” issues.

Listen [...]

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From EW:

By Gregory Kirschling

When author Kurt Vonnegut died last week at the age of 84, the first person EW rang was Vonnegut’s longtime friend John Irving, who was Vonnegut’s student at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the mid-’60s. Irving — the writer of The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, [...]

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Normally, I might’ve just linked to this, but it’s worth having on hand to be re-read now and then.

From the Onion A.V. Club:

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Ever Will

1. “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, [...]

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Jonathan Lethem stopped by Harry W. Schwartz books in Milwaukee, a couple of weeks ago to read from his new novel, You Don’t Love Me Yet.

Here’s some audio of the event.



tags technorati : Jonathan Lethem, books, reading, Milwaukee, You_Don’t_Love_Me_Yet, audio

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Kurt Vonnegut died today and frankly, I don’t know what to do about that.

My first experience with Vonnegut’s work was like most people—Slaughter House Five, a book that I wasn’t sure what it was about, but was sure that the words Slaughter House were a positive indication. Turns out my hunch was right. The book [...]

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Remeber in school often once a year they’d have Career Day?

People’s relatives might come in and discuss what a lawyer does. What it’s like to be a firefighter or nurse.

Memory doesn’t serve me, if any journalists or writers ever spoke. There’s only one adult that I knew that wrote fiction and worked at a newspaper, [...]

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From Variety.com:

Phoenix, De Luca chomp on ‘Dead’ Huston’s novel the first of a five-book series

By MICHAEL FLEMING



Phoenix Pictures and Mike De Luca Prods. will team for a feature adaptation of the Charlie Huston vampire novel “Already Dead.” Scott Rosenberg will write the script.De Luca will produce with Phoenix’s David Thwaites and Brad Fischer. Alissa Phillips [...]

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