I know he writes good short stories.Originally Posted by feverishparade
Just started reading this. It's the author's debut novel but I've heard some very, very good things. Really looking forward to getting into the meat of the story.
I know he writes good short stories.Just started reading this. It's the author's debut novel but I've heard some very, very good things. Really looking forward to getting into the meat of the story.
I'm really enjoying The Strain, about a third in. And still nothing really about vampires, which is actually nice. I'm liking the medical part of it. Any other novels similar to this style? I guess everything by Robin Cook?
sk
bears want to read it too!!!
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice! Anything I can read online ?I know he writes good short stories.Just started reading this. It's the author's debut novel but I've heard some very, very good things. Really looking forward to getting into the meat of the story.
The March - E. L. Doctorow
To be followed, assuming the plan goes right, by Count Belesarius - Robert Graves.
Stephen King - Desperation
Robert R. McCammon - Baal
edit: Dan Simmons - Summer of Night
El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency, by Ioan Grillo
http://american-rattlesnake.org/2011/11/narco-nation/
On Sunday, I finished, A STORM OF SWORDS (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3), by George R.R. Martin. A very long book, but worth every moment.
Currently reading, AMERICAN GODS: THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION: A NOVEL, Author's Preferred Text, by Neil Gaiman. I am enjoying it more than I did the first time a few years ago when I read the version originally released.
Ordered this baby, looks fascinating:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/bo...ings.html?_r=1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1451658168In an interview in The Paris Review in 1958 Ernest Hemingway made an admission that has inspired frustrated novelists ever since: The final words of “A Farewell to Arms,” his wartime masterpiece, were rewritten “39 times before I was satisfied.”
Those endings have become part of literary lore, but they have never been published together in their entirety, according to his longtime publisher, Scribner.
A new edition of “A Farewell to Arms,” which was originally published in 1929, will be released next week, including all the alternate endings, along with early drafts of other passages in the book.
The new edition is the result of an agreement between Hemingway’s estate and Scribner, now an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
It is also an attempt to redirect some of the attention paid in recent years to Hemingway’s swashbuckling, hard-drinking image — through fictional depictions in the best-selling novel “The Paris Wife” and the Woody Allen film “Midnight in Paris,” for instance — back to his sizable body of work.
“I think people who are interested in writing and trying to write themselves will find it interesting to look at a great work and have some insight to how it was done,” Seán Hemingway, a grandson of Ernest Hemingway who is also a curator of Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said in an interview. “But he is a writer who has captured the imagination of the American public, and these editions are interesting because they really focus on his work. Ultimately that’s his lasting contribution.”
The new edition concludes that the 39 endings that Hemingway referred to are really more like 47. They have been preserved in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston since 1979, where Seán Hemingway studied them carefully. (Bernard S. Oldsey, a Hemingway scholar, listed 41 endings in his book “Hemingway’s Hidden Craft,” but Seán Hemingway found 47 variations in manuscripts preserved at the Kennedy Library.)
The alternate endings are labeled and gathered in an appendix in the new edition, a 330-page book whose cover bears the novel’s original artwork, an illustration of a reclining man and woman, both topless.
For close readers of Hemingway the endings are a fascinating glimpse into how the novel could have concluded on a different note, sometimes more blunt and sometimes more optimistic. And since modern authors tend to produce their work on computers, the new edition also serves as an artifact of a bygone craft, with handwritten notes and long passages crossed out, giving readers a sense of an author’s process. (When asked in the 1958 Paris Review interview with George Plimpton what had stumped him, Hemingway said, “Getting the words right.”)
The endings range from a short sentence or two to several paragraphs.
In No. 1, “The Nada Ending,” Hemingway wrote, “That is all there is to the story. Catherine died and you will die and I will die and that is all I can promise you.”
The “Live-Baby Ending,” listed as No. 7, concludes, “There is no end except death and birth is the only beginning.”
And in No. 34, the “Fitzgerald ending,” suggested by Hemingway’s friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway wrote that the world “breaks everyone,” and those “it does not break it kills.”
“It kills the very good and very gentle and the very brave impartially,” he wrote. “If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
Hemingway also left behind a list of alternate titles, which are reprinted in the new edition. They include “Love in War,” “World Enough and Time,” “Every Night and All” and “Of Wounds and Other Causes.” One title, “The Enchantment,” was crossed out by Hemingway.
Patrick Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s only surviving son, said in an interview from his home in Montana that when Scribner suggested the raw material be published, he agreed.
“They do give insight to how Hemingway was thinking,” said Patrick Hemingway, who is 84. “But it is absolutely true that no matter how much you analyze a classic bit of writing, you can never really figure out what makes talent work.”
Susan Moldow, the publisher of Scribner, said that while Hemingway is a perennial strong seller, especially for schools and libraries, “the estate is constantly wanting to present the work afresh.”
“This is one of the most important authors in American history,” she said. “And fortunately or unfortunately you need to keep refreshing or people lose interest.”
After reading the various endings, Ms. Moldow added, she didn’t question the author’s decision; the actual ending — cool and passionless after an epic tale of war and love, with the protagonist leaving a hospital in the rain — has stood the test of time.
“Ultimately,” she said, “I think we have to be glad that he went with the ending that he went with.”
Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right. This edition collects all of the alternative endings together for the first time, along with early drafts of other essential passages, offering new insight into Hemingway’s craft and creative process and the evolution of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Featuring Hemingway’s own 1948 introduction to an illustrated reissue of the novel, a personal foreword by the author’s son Patrick Hemingway, and a new introduction by the author’s grandson Seán Hemingway, this edition of A Farewell to Arms is truly a celebration.
Got this as a nice little break from the usual stuff I read so I could have a nice collection of short stories to read on the train, as well as the fact that I've just gotten back to the game The Witcher which I've really been enjoying. I must say, it's been really absorbing so far. The collection focuses on Geralt, a "Witcher", a mutated human who hunts for monsters. However, despite not being a fan of the fantasy genre, the world presented in the Witcher certainly seems just a little more in-depth, as not only is Geralt a man you couldn't really label as good or evil, just a man doing a job, but the other characters introduced seem to be more three dimensional and surprising than the usual bunch. The whole thing so far reminds me of GRRM's work, (especially the King,) only with more of a singular focus on one character rather than an epic cast. Unsurprising, considering that this is a short story collection rather than a novel, although this does lead into a novel series, from what I've heard. Looking forward to reading a lot more anyway.
You have exceptional taste! (Just like whoever bought you that book, I expect.
Never be cruel and never be cowardly. And if you ever are, always make amends.
You are a walking talking Doctor Who encyclopedia to me. - Melike
Just finished WTTK, now starting on this bad boy
"If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you will never change the outcome" -Michael Jordan
Tomorrow, I'm starting on Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat that Touched the World.
Oh, awesome! That's set in a town very near where I live. I heard a lot about it when it was released....
King - Desparation
Simmons - Summer of Night
Ketchum - Off Season - started it today
I'm a fan of Iowa, though I've never been. lol My husband was in Ottumwa earlier this year for video game stuff. We're working on a documentary about arcades. Who knew the video game capitol of the world is in Iowa?
Never been there myself...but glad there's another fan of my wonderful state around.We also have the Ice Cream capitol of the world, actually!
Elric: The Sleeping Sorceress by Michael Moorcock
This Crooked Way by James Enge
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
I honestly don't know. I read very little online...aside from my post obsession. LOLNice! Anything I can read online ?I know he writes good short stories.Just started reading this. It's the author's debut novel but I've heard some very, very good things. Really looking forward to getting into the meat of the story.
A Clockwork Orange
Its real horrorshow!
Sloth Love Chunk
I love A Clockwork Orange. The first copy I owned looked like this:
It was tattered and old. And when it fell apart in my hands, I hunted through used book stores and yard sales to find another copy with the same cover. Something about that cover makes the book better.
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