Books, Reading, Ideas

Halleluiah by Mary Oliver

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:02:00 +0000

Halleluiah

Everyone should be born into this world happy
and loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway I'm not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you too decided that probably nothing important
is ever easy?
Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I'm sixty now, and even a little more,
and some days I feel I have wings.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Evidence)

A Gesture Life by Chang Rae Lee

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:48:00 +0000

A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Profoundly moving story, 12 Mar 2006

By	kimbofo (London, UK)

Every so often you come across a book that makes you rejoice in the sheer beauty of the English language and the power of the novel to change your perspective on so many different things.

In A Gesture Life Chang-Rae Lee has delivered one of the most elegantly restrained pieces of fiction I have ever read and yet, despite the unhurried prose, it brims with suspense, so much so I was reluctant to put the book down and read it within a matter of days.

It's a rare, almost perfect novel that provides such an eloquent insight into the nature of human relationships that I don't honestly know how to condense the magic of this profoundly moving and deeply unsettling story into one short review that will do A Gesture Life any kind of justice.

In fact, I'd argue that the blurb on my Penguin edition, doesn't even come close to explaining what this story is about, and I suspect that most people would overlook the book entirely should they stumble upon it in a bookstore or library. Personally, I can't even remember why I bought it, other than the ringing one-word endorsements - "Stunning," New York Times Book Review; "Unforgettable," USA Today; "Mesmerising," San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - on the front cover must have spoken to me on some deeply unconscious level. Even so, this book lay unread in my bedside cabinet for nine months before I decided to pick it up.

And once I picked it up, I was taken on a sagacious journey that allowed me to walk in another man's shoes. The fact that that man was an elderly Japanese-American speaks volumes for Chang-rae Lee's abilities as a storyteller...

I will be discussing this novel with my Literature classes next week. The feedback I've had so far is that it's an amazing novel and everyone is eager to get together and have a go.

Lord of the Flies

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:19:00 +0000

original UK cover

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It discusses how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British school-boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results. Its stances on the already controversial subjects of human nature and individual welfare versus the common good earned it position 70 on the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged Books of 1990–2000. The novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.

Published in 1954, Lord of the Flies was Golding's first novel, and although it was not a great success at the time — selling fewer than three thousand copies in the United States during 1955 before going out of print — it soon went on to become a bestseller, and by the early 1960s was required reading in many schools and colleges. It was adapted to film in 1963 by Peter Brook, and again in 1990 by Harry Hook (see "Film adaptations").

The title is said to be a reference to the Hebrew name Beelzebub (בעל זבוב, Ba'al-zvuv, "god of the fly", "host of the fly" or literally "Lord of Flies"), a name sometimes used as a synonym for Satan. (Wikipedia)

^{Google search}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm planning to teach Golding's novel this semester, Fall 2008. It's proving to be an exceedingly interesting and complex novel.

theteach

The River Queen by Mary Morris

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Sat, 31 May 2008 22:53:00 +0000

"The River Queen"

(Reviewed by Guy Savage MAY 10, 2007)

“I guess you’ve seen it all on this trip, haven’t you, Mary? You’ve seen hooters and shakers. You’ve been in tornadoes and hurricanes and lightening storms and bugs. You’ve bivouacked on beaches and swam in the river’s mud. You’ve met sorcerers and sea captains, river rats and gypsies…. What more could you ask for?"

This is both a literal and figurative journey for Morris. As the houseboat sails down the Mississippi, there are many stops in the communities along the way, and the journey cause memories of the author’s father to flood to the surface. Morris’s father was clearly a remarkable man, and many of the author’s memories involve mulling over the peculiarities of her parents’ marriage--theirs was not a “loving union.”

Morris captures the often-claustrophobic atmosphere on the houseboat. When the journey begins, there is no running water, and no electricity. Tom brings his dog, a small terrier named Samantha Jean--who is recovering from cancer--along for the trip, and Morris captures the extraordinarily close relationship between Tom and Samantha Jean. In the months that follow, the travelers survive a tornado, an insect infestation, and various mishaps. But more importantly, Morris discovers a sense of closure about the death of her beloved father.

There are some wonderful moments here--at one point, for example, Morris runs into a family about to sail around the world--a journey that they anticipate will take four years. The husband explains that their home-schooled daughter doesn’t have “much choice” in the matter, and Morris’s unsettling moment with the daughter haunts her later. This meeting however, morphs into Morris’s recollections of her daughter, Kate in a tender childhood moment: “I think of our empty house. Our daughter gone. And I recall a night when she was a little girl.” It’s this sort of transitional leap that removes The River Queen as a travel book, and confirms it as more of a personal memoir. As a travel book, it’s disappointing, and Morris misses many opportunities to hook the reader in--for example, she visits the Superman Museum in Metropolis, Illinois, and wanders around. Slightly less than two pages are devoted to the town, George Reeves and the museum. I can’t help thinking that author John Berendt would have handled this material differently, but Morris seems to miss an opportunity here while even she admits she’s “bored.”

If you are hoping for a travel book, you may be disappointed. The River Queen is frequently far too personal and introspective to fall into that category. For a great deal of the time, author Mary Morris does not appear to be having a good time. And at one point, she quips that on the boat: “there is no place to go, really, if one is in a bad mood, or wants to be alone.” There were moments in the book when I wanted the author to ask more questions of those she meets, but instead the book rather frustratingly misses opportunities by swerving away from the external world, and instead the author chooses to turn her gaze inwards towards her personal life and her cherished memories. And whether or not readers connect with Morris’s memories may be determined by some sort of shared experience between author and reader--grief, loss or perhaps even a desire to drop everything and sail down the Mississippi for a while.

Mary Morris's bio:

Born in Chicago in l947, Morris moved East to go to college. Though she never returned to the Middle West, she often writes about the region and its tug. Morris likes the fact that there is more magnetisim around the shores of Lake Michigan than the North Pole. She feels drawn there and feel an affinity for Midwestern writers such as Willa Cather and Mark Twain who wrote their stories of the Middle West from afar.

In her first collection of short stories, Vanishing Animals & Other Stories , awarded the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters, Morris writes about childhood and adolescent memories. The Chicago Tribune called Morris "a marvelous storyteller-a budding Isaac Bashevis Singer, a young Doris Lessing, a talent to be watched and read." Morris's stories often deal with the tension between home and away. Travel is an important theme in many of the stories in her three collections, including Vanishing Animals, The Bus of Dreams , and The Lifeguard Stories . It is also a recurrent theme in her trilogy of travel memoirs, including the acclaimed Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone, Wall to Wall: from Beijing to Berlin by Rail , and Angels & Aliens: A Journey West . In her five novels, including The Waiting Room, The Night Sky (formerly published as A Mother's Love ) and House Arrest , Morris writes of family, its difficulties and disappointments, its iron grip and necessity, and ultimately the comfort family can bring.

Whether writing fiction or non-fiction, Morris sees herself as a storyteller, weaving tales. A Japanese critic once, referring to her non-fiction, told Morris that she is not really a travel writer; rather she writes stories that take place during journeys.

Her many novels and story collections have been translated into Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Swedish and Japanese.

The recipient of many prizes and awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the George W. Perkins Fellowship at Princeton University, Morris is currently working on a generational family saga, set in Chicago, during the jazz age. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and daughter and teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College.

theteach

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Ursula Hegi's Stones from the River clamors for comparisons to Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum; her protagonist Trudi Montag--like the unforgettable Oskar Mazerath--is a dwarf living in Germany during the two World Wars. To its credit, Stones does not wilt from the comparison. Hegi's book has a distinctive, appealing flavor of its own. Stone's characters are off-center enough to hold your attention despite the inevitable dominance of the setting: There's Trudi's mother, who slowly goes insane living in an "earth nest" beneath the family house; Trudi's best friend Georg, whose parents dress him as the girl they always wanted; and, of course, Trudi herself, whose condition dooms her to long for an impossible normalcy. Futhermore, the reader's inevitable sympathy for Trudi, the dwarf, heightens the true grotesqueness of Nazi Germany. Stones from the River is a nightmare journey with an unforgettable guide.

Ursula Hegi Photographed by Gordon Gagliano

theteach

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'll also be teaching this novel in the Fall 2008

A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:11:00 +0000

This complex exquisitely written novel concerns both cultural/racial exile and universal experiences of emotional exile. It raises numerous human and moral issues: how the need for acceptance generates a pressure to conform that may ultimately be dehumanizing; how the brutality of war creates enormous moral dilemmas, where the horrors experienced and the decisions that are made may destroy the capacity to make emotional attachments; how parent-child relationships are inevitably affected by past trauma. The relationship of father and daughter is beautifully drawn and depicts powerfully how self-destructive and yet brave a troubled adolescent can be.

From its retrospective stance the novel can ask moral questions with the benefit of hindsight, yet it confronts us with the need to address those same questions in the here and now. Interestingly, the protagonist, Hata, is known locally as "Doc" and although he never tries to pass himself off as a physician, this pseudo-doctor designation is emblematic of the facade which is his life. It is metaphor also for the imperfect moral choices that Hata makes. In the end, Hata's willingness to let the past surface and disturb the present is what redeems him and allows him to re-establish emotional connection.

I will be teaching this novel in the Fall of 2008.

theteach

Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:08:00 +0000

From Publishers Weekly
Espionage acts as a metaphor for the uneasy relationship of Amerasians to American society in this eloquent, thought-provoking tale of a young Korean-American's struggle to conjoin the fragments of his personality in culturally diverse New York City. Raised in a family and culture valuing careful control of emotions and appearances, narrator Henry Park, son of a successful Korean-American grocer, works as an undercover operative for a vaguely sinister private intelligence agency. He and his "American wife," Lelia, are estranged, partly as a result of Henry's stoical way of coping with the recent death of their young son. Henry is also having trouble at work, becoming emotionally attached to the people he should be investigating. Ruminating on his upbringing, he traces the path that has led to his present sorrow; as he infiltrates the staff of a popular Korean-American city councilman, he discovers the broader, societal context of the issues he has been grappling with personally. Writing in a precise yet freewheeling prose that takes us deep into Henry's head, first-novelist Lee packs this story, whose intrigue is well measured and compelling, with insights into both current political events and timeless questions of love, culture, family bonds and identity.

theteach

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:20:00 +0000

If you haven't read The Awakening by Kate Chopin you've missed a great read!

The Awakening is a short novel by Kate Chopin, published in 1899. It is widely considered to be a proto-feminist precursor to American modernism.

Plot summary

Edna Pontellier, the wife of a successful New Orleans business man and the mother of two, vacations with her family at a seaside resort in Grand Isle, Louisiana. She spends much of her time with Robert Lebrun, a romantic young man who has decided to attach himself to Edna for the summer. After many intimate conversations, boating excursions, and moonlit walks, they both realize that they are developing romantic feelings for each other. Edna then realizes that there is much within herself that has remained dormant throughout her adult life.

When vacation ends and the Pontelliers return to New Orleans, Edna frees herself from the trappings of her old life, including her social position, her role as a mother, and her role as a wife. A major part of this freeing in Edna's life is accomplished through her affair with Alcée Arobin. Moving out of her husband's house, she establishes herself in a cottage and hopes that Robert Lebrun will return soon from an extended business trip in Mexico.

Upon Robert's return, Edna discovers that he is unable to come to grips with her newfound freedom. Indeed, he seems hopelessly bound by the traditional values of the French Creole community.

WARNING READ NO FURTHER - SPOILERS!

Edna thereupon returns to the seaside resort in the off-season. She makes arrangements for her lunch before heading off to the beach, and carries along a towel for drying off. Unable to resist the lure of the water, she strips nude and swims out as far as she can and, having exhausted herself, drowns. Most readers interpret this final passage as a deliberate attempt at suicide.

theteach

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:24:00 +0000

The Kite Runner is the first novel by Afghan American author Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003, it is the first novel published in English by an author from Afghanistan.
The film is out to marvelous reviews. The official film site is The Kite Runner movie.com.

film poster

A Holiday wish from me to you:

It is that time of the year again, when you are thankful for everything merry and bright. May this Christmas be a delight! Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!

theteach

What Will You Get for the 12 Days of Christmas?

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 22:26:00 +0000

From Blogthings:

For the twelve days of Christmas, your true love will send you:

Twelve glam rockers drumming

Eleven candycanes a-sticking

Ten midgets a-leaping

Nine ladies waltzing

Eight llamas a-milking

Seven hot chocolates a-steaming

Six iPods a-playing

Five golden coins

Four calling bill collectors

Three French fries

Two stale fruit cakes

And a crazy homeless person in an apple tree

What Will You Get for the 12 Days of Christmas?

Hanukkah books

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:10:00 +0000

Barnes and Noble

McSweeney Books

Little Simon; Brdbk edition (September 25, 2007)

theteach

Perks of Reading

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:49:00 +0000

Via al.com:

Creating lifelong readers

Posted by tscarrit November 25, 2007 3:31 AM

If you are reading this column, chances are you are more successful than the average person, more involved in your community and less likely to be in prison.

That is not because of anything I have written. It is because you have chosen to read.

A new study by the National Endowment for the Arts suggests that reading transforms lives. "Regular reading not only boosts the likelihood of an individual's academic and economic success -- facts that are not especially surprising -- but it also seems to awaken a person's social and civic sense," wrote Dana Gioia, chairman of the NEA.

While correlation is not the same as cause and effect, it is clear from the new report, "To Read or Not To Read," that all kinds of positive measures go along with voluntary reading. Those who cannot read, or choose not to read, do not fare so well.

After considering data from a number of studies, the NEA reports three conclusions: "Americans are spending less time reading. Reading comprehension skills are eroding. These declines have serious civic, social, cultural and economic implications."

theteach

The Polar Express by Chris Van Allburg

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 15:32:00 +0000

If you're thinking of buying books for your children this Christmas don't forget to include

The Polar Express.

A magical train ride on Christmas Eve takes a boy to the North Pole to receive a special gift from Santa. "As always, the forms are sculptured, the perspectives as dazzling as they are audacious, the colors rich and elegant, the use of light and shadow masterly." -- Horn Book

Tom Hanks stars in the film of the same name.

the teach

Norman Mailer dies

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 21:53:00 +0000

Via NYTimes.com

Photo: Christina Pabst

Norman Mailer, the combative, controversial and often outspoken novelist who loomed over American letters longer and larger than any writer of his generation, died today in Manhattan. He was 84. He died of acute renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital early this morning, his family said.

Photo: Harry Ransom Center

After the publication of The Naked and the Dead, Mailer, then a 25-year-old literary novice, was suddenly famous and at the dawn of a prolific career in which he would loom as one of the major U.S. writers of the twentieth century. He would also continue to be measured by others as well as by himself against his 1948 success.

In 1969 Mr. Mailer ran a second time for mayor of New York City. He was a secessionist advocating that New York City become the 51 state.

Gay Talese, left, with E. L. Doctorow and Norman Mailer at a gathering in support of Salman Rushdie held by the PEN writers' group on February 22, 1989. (Photo: Getty Images)

In 1984 Mr. Mailer was elected president of PEN American Center and was the main force in bringing together writers from all over the world for a much publicized literary conference called “The Writer's Imagination and the Imagination of the State.”

Mr. Mailer's last novel was The Castle on the Forest.

theteach

A Unicorn Is Born by Trinie Dalton

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:22:00 +0000

Ursula is a pregnant unicorn awaiting the birth of her first baby to whom she's already given the name Uma. Ursula is a Forest unicorn with many friends: Quinn, the squirrel and Arf, the gray fox, with whom she talks about very special herbs, beautiful rainbows and unicorn lore (a unicorn's horn can counteract poison).

While Ursula awaits the birth of her baby colt she thinks about her life and what parenting will be like and how her relationship with Uma will develop. As the time draws near for Ursula to give birth she looks for an appropriate place to have her baby. She chooses the Perfectly Symmetrical Canyon as the ideal magical nursery.

Ursula takes to motherhood immediately and begins teaching and entertaining little Uma. Uma learns all about the forest and its creatures and all the mythical and wondrous things unicorns do. Young Uma learns magic and the arts of transforming and alchemy as well as how to be kind and care for the forest animals.

There is much to learn about the remarkable unicorns in this book, but the love between mother and child, the true affinity between them, is central. The story of warm and loving fantasy and myth will please children of all ages. The illustrations by Katherin Ayer are gorgeous and delightfully painterly. Has a collection of stickers at the back of the book.

A Unicorn Is Born at Amazon.com

theteach

PBS to show Austen films on Masterpiece Theatre

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:33:00 +0000

'Complete Jane Austen' features all her novels
By Steve Brennan

Nov 2, 2007
Jane Austen fans in the U.S. can be grateful for what appears to have been something of a local feud between the U.K.'s ITV and the BBC over filmed versions of the author's English classics. The rush to production over recent years has made it possible for PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre" to air adaptations of all six of her novels for the first time in what amounts to an Austen festival beginning in January.

Fans in the U.S. have been busily blogging for months with chatter about the upcoming series, "The Complete Jane Austen." But full details of the event are now being outlined by U.K. screenwriter Andrew Davies and "Masterpiece" executive producer Rebecca Eaton, who are on a multicity tour to promote the series and meet sponsors.

"Complete Jane Austen" offers new productions of "Northanger Abbey," "Persuasion," "Mansfield Park" and "Sense and Sensibility." The lineup also includes "Pride and Prejudice," starring Colin Firth, as well as the version of "Emma" that stars Kate Beckinsale.

drawing above: Austen at Bath, England

theteach

The Sandbox

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:13:00 +0000

Via NPR:

All Things Considered, October 18, 2007 · The Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau has never been to Iraq or Afghanistan. But for years, his strip has chronicled the wars in those countries, with the stories of characters like Ray Hightower and B.D. — the football coach and Vietnam vet who went to Iraq with the National Guard.

Trudeau's latest project involves real-life soldiers. Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox is a compilation of writings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan that were posted on a blog at Doonesbury.com.

Trudeau tells Michele Norris that his goal was to provide a general audience the "flavor" of what life is like for troops overseas.

Soldiers' Stories:

Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox collects dispatches from nearly 40 contributors. In all, nearly 100 soldiers have contributed to the military blog, or "milblog," at Doonesbury.com.

1st Sgt. Troy Steward, 38, is from Buffalo, N.Y. He recently returned from Sharana, Afghanistan. Troy reads a post titled "Lost Innocence," which tells the story of a young boy whose father has been murdered by the Taliban.

Sgt. Owen Powell, 40, is from Yellow Springs, Ohio, and recently returned from Iraq. He blogs under the name "Sgt. Roy Batty" — a character from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. He reads from "The Keep," a post about what daily life is like for a soldier deployed in Iraq.

You can listen to these soldiers' stories at NPR's web site.

theteach

Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize for Literature

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:55:00 +0000

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- British author Doris Lessing, whose latest novel The Cleft depicts a world without men, won the 2007 Nobel literature prize, the Swedish Academy said.

Lessing, 87, is an "epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny,'' the Stockholm-based academy said on its Web site today. The Golden Notebook, her breakthrough novel, ``belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th- century view of the male-female relationship,'' the academy said. (Bloomberg.com)

theteach

maryt

Orange Prize for Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:51:00 +0000

Orange Prize for Fiction

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie holds the “Bessie”*

The Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction is one of the United Kingdom’s most prestigious literary prizes, awarded annually for the best original full-length novel by a female author of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK in the preceding year.

The winner of the prize receives £30,000, along with a bronze sculpture called the *”Bessie” created by artist Grizel Niven, the sister of actor/writer David Niven.

Winners

1996: Helen Dunmore - A Spell of Winter
1997: Anne Michaels - Fugitive Pieces
1998: Carol Shields - Larry’s Party
1999: Suzanne Berne - A Crime in the Neighborhood
2000: Linda Grant - When I Lived in Modern Times
2001: Kate Grenville - The Idea of Perfection
2002: Ann Patchett - Bel Canto
2003: Valerie Martin - Property
2004: Andrea Levy - Small Island
2005: Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin
2006: Zadie Smith - On Beauty
2007: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun

theteach

Via maryt's Manic Monday post

Purging prison libraries of books of faith

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:39:00 +0000

Check out my post on Work of the Poet for today.

Assigning Classics and the Love of Reading

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:10:00 +0000

I have always believed that kids shouldn't be subjected to reading the classics in middle school and high school because it teaches them, more than likely, to hate reading as adults.

Joe Queenan's essay called "Summer Bummer" supports my claim, essentially, and names works by Hardy, Eliot and Dickens as the bugaboo texts teachers insist on assigning as summer reading for adolescents . And he's talking about "Advanced Placement" kids. I can imagine what "average" kids think about reading such indecipherable texts.

Give Queenan's essay a read. There's a good laugh at the end of it. :)

theteach

Ian McEwan's "Atonement" is now a film

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:51:00 +0000

Atonement tests Knightley's fame

By Razia Iqbal
BBC Arts correspondent

Keira Knightley's performance in Atonement has been applauded

When a British film is called highly-anticipated and shown on an international stage, the clarion call of "the British are coming" is never far behind.

As the curtain-raiser to the Venice Film Festival, Atonement, only the second feature from 35-year-old director Joe Wright, is generating such interest.

Critics have reacted warmly to the film, based on Ian McEwan's novel, and some have even been bold enough to talk about Oscars, not least for the central performance from Keira Knightley.

The actress says she was very keen to work with Joe Wright again, who steered her to an Oscar nomination in her role as Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice.

Knightley admits she read the script - about a couple who are divided by class but devastatingly intertwined by a false accusation - before she tackled the novel.

'Path to sanity'

"I eventually read it a week before we started filming. My character, Cecilia, is slightly different in the book. There is a maternal softness to her which I certainly didn't play," explains the 22-year-old actress.

Knightley, who has become a major film star, has mixed feelings about the culture of celebrity and being famous - which another high-profile role is likely to increase.

James McAvoy and Keira Knightley play lovers divided by class

"Once you become famous you get completely dehumanised. I think people forget there is a person in there trying to deal with it," she says.

"Partly the way you deal with it is by not reading, not looking and seeing any of it and burying your head in the sand. It is the only path to sanity," adds Knightley.

She hopes that cinema-goers will "bawl their eyes out" when they see Atonement, and dreams that the Venice Film Festival, where it will compete for the prestigious Golden Lion, will mirror the progress of The Queen last year - which culminated in Dame Helen Mirren winning an Oscar.

Knightley's co-star in the film, James McAvoy, has built an impressive film CV of his own, including a role in award-winning The Last King of Scotland.

But he is resigned to the fact that his glamorous female lead will steal all the headlines.

"I don't mind that Keira will get a lot of attention. She deserves it. She is incredible in the film.

Once you become famous you get completely dehumanised. I think people forget there is a person in there trying to deal with it

Keira Knightley on the downside of fame

"I'm very, very lucky to be involved in this film and it was the finest professional experience in my life. I'm very fortunate," adds the actor.

Director Joe Wright, who is already working on his next feature, says he felt "fear" when he discovered Atonement would open the Venice Film Festival, but adds his career does not rest on the accolade, or box office takings.

But he admits to being prepared for the prestigious event's red carpet, having already purchased a new Prada shirt for the occasion.

Atonement premieres at the Venice Film Festival on 29 August. It opens at cinemas in the UK on 7 September.

Via BBC News

theteach

THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ by Dalia Sofer

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 22:52:00 +0000

Via New York Times review:

Lost in Tehran

By CLAIRE MESSUD

Published: August 5, 2007

A memorable title will surely attract readers, but when a book becomes a classic, it’s hard to say whether the title has been part of its canonization or has merely become retroactively canonical. Would “Trimalchio in West Egg,” one of Fitzgerald’s initial choices, have in time accrued the same force as “The Great Gatsby”? “The Septembers of Shiraz,” poignant once you’ve read this first novel by Dalia Sofer, is, on its own, a title at once overly poetic and misleading. An American reader might be forgiven for thinking Sofer has written a romance set in the Napa Valley, “Sideways” with Vaseline on the lens. And that would be a great shame because “The Septembers of Shiraz” is a remarkable debut: the richly evocative, powerfully affecting depiction of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran shortly after the revolution. In this fickle literary world, it’s impossible to predict whether Sofer’s novel will become a classic, but it certainly stands a chance.

Ecco/HarperCollins Publishers. $24.95.

Photo: Dalia Sofer by Shahrzad Elghana

theteach

Book Cover Design

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:39:00 +0000

Some exciting and unusual book covers:

Designer: Nicole Caputo
title: 8
author: Amy Fusselman
publisher: Counterpoint Press, 2007

title: The Tourists
author: Jeff Hobbs
publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2007

Designer: Jon Gray
title: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2005

Designer: John Gall
title: A General Theory of Love
author: Thomas Lewis
publisher: Vintage, 2001

Mythic Studio

all but the last via Covers

theteach

Fish on Literary Life after Death

noreply@blogger.com (maryt/theteach) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:20:00 +0000

About the rebirth of short story writer Leonard Michaels:

July 11, 2007, 10:49 pm

A New Life After Death

by Stanley Fish

Literary history is full of stories of men and women whose once rising stars fell below the horizon, but who were rediscovered and even canonized (in the literary sense) after they died. What must that feel like? … Read the column »