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Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike dead at age 76

Posted by Dana on 01.28.2009 at 7:47 am

John Updike in 1955 John Updike, the prolific and Pulitzer Prize winning author passed away yesterday, Tuesday January 27th, from lung cancer.

Updike was best known for his Rabbit novels – two of which won the Pulitzer Prize;  Rabbit is Rich in 1982 and Rabbit at Rest in 1991.  His latest novel Terrorist was released in 2006.

Born in 1932, Updike released more than 50 books in his career, many of which were bestsellers.  He was known for his literary style and in addition to the two Pulitzers, he was also the recipient of two National Book Awards and many other literary prizes.

His voice will be sorely missed.

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Ready Set WriMo

Posted by Geoff on 10.31.2008 at 2:50 pm

Today (Halloween) is actually the eve of National Novel Writing Month (more affectionately known as NaNoWriMo). What is national NaNoWriMo you ask? Good question. NaNoWriMo is 100,000+ people around the world, each committing to write a 50,000 word novel in November. It’s like a support group for folks that don’t want to carry out their dream of writing a novel – with a crazy deadline.

It's NaNoWriMo

Some facts about the event:
Read more…

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Lux Perpetuam: David Foster Wallace

Posted by Jack on 09.15.2008 at 2:40 pm

Surprise is not a prerequisite for sadness.

David Foster Wallace, wordsmith notable for having written numerous great essays and the wonderful–if complex–Infinite Jest, was found dead yesterday.  Wallace’s wife found him after he had passed by hanging himself.

Few who were familiar with Wallace and his work will be totally shocked; suicide and depression were oft mentioned material for the author.  But the mere proliferation doesn’t ease the pain of losing this kind of talent.

His own prescience about knowing oneself (to use the cliche but correct Polonius phrase) and ability to take perspective, most notable (at least in the free-use realm) in his Commencement at Kenyon was one of his finest gifts.  At the same time this deftness with converting experience into words was one of his most difficult challenges to transcend.  As Wordsworth said of himself, “The world is too much with us; late and soon,” and one gets the feeling the world, and its dusty corners that Wallace shed light on, were indeed “too much with [him]“.  Thus, it is with the same sense which we took on the suicide of Elliott Smith, David Foster Wallace will be missed not with shock, but with a kind of resigned tragedy.  It’s like the rain on a parade after a dour forecast; you packed your umbrella, but hope still that the storm will pass.  He was 46 years old.

Check out his excellent fansite for more information and resources about his writing.

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Lux Perpetuam: Robert Giroux

Posted by admin on 09.08.2008 at 3:36 pm

What do the following names have in common, besides their obvious amazing talent: Virginia Woolf, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carl Sandburg, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Katherine Anne Porter, Walker Percy, Donald Barthelme, Grace Paley, Derek Walcott and William Golding? How about this list: George Orwell, Jean Stafford, Robert Lowell, Bernard Malamud, Flannery O’Connor, Randall Jarrell, William Gaddis, Jack Kerouac and Susan Sontag?

Robert Giroux, who passed away on Friday at age 94 was the editor for the first list and the publisher for the second.  The man had a freakish connectedness in the literary world, having done everything from publishing Orwell’s 1984 to having the following conversation with T.S. Eliot (which I liberally steal from the NYT):

“His ambition to write might have prompted an exchange with Eliot, then in his late 50s, on the day they met in 1946, when Mr. Giroux, “just past 30,” as he recalled the moment in “The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes,” was an editor at Harcourt, Brace. “His most memorable remark of the day,” Mr. Giroux said, “occurred when I asked him if he agreed with the definition that most editors are failed writers, and he replied, ‘Perhaps, but so are most writers.’ ””

Giroux was a man who went from high-school drop out to publishing house luminary and did so with considerable skill and success.  Anyone who loves great literature should take a moment and think about an extraordinary man whose talent and risk-taking produced some of the finest works ever published (and even wrote a book himself).

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Randy Pausch – Lux Perpetuam

Posted by admin on 07.25.2008 at 9:56 am

Randy Pausch, notable computer science teacher at Carnegie Mellon died today, finally succumbing to the pancreatic cancer that he knew would take his life eventually.  Pausch, perhaps more known for his inspirational Last Lecture, given on September 18th 2007 (and subsequently published), was 47 years old.

From the AP –

The talk was videotaped and subsequently criss-crossed the world via the Internet. More than 3.2 million people had viewed the “Last Lecture” on YouTube alone as of Friday, and according to Carnegie Mellon, tens of millions have watched Pausch’s inspirational talk.

“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you,” said Pausch, the married father of three young children, at the start of the lecture.

He focused in his talk not on his illness but on “my childhood dreams; how I believe I have been able to enable the dreams of others; and, to some degree, lessons learned… how you can use the stuff you hear today to pursue your dreams or enable the dreams of others.”

Pausch outlined his own childhood dreams, which included writing a World Book Encyclopedia entry, experiencing zero gravity and creating Disney attractions — all dreams that were fulfilled…

“If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself,” Pausch said. “The dreams will come to you.”

The talk spawned a book, called “The Last Lecture,” which was translated into 30 languages and topped best-seller lists around the world.

The book was an attempt by Pausch “to put myself in a bottle that will one day wash up on the beach for my children,” he was quoted as saying by Carnegie Mellon.

Here we have the hardcover (and large print) + audio CD.

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Read This… Not That

Posted by Geoff on 07.18.2008 at 4:32 pm

Read this:

Mike Winder's book

Not that:

For the hundreds of our BetterWorld.com customers who are still buying James Frey’s book, A Million Little Pieces, and the hundreds more thinking about it, I have one suggestion: you deserve better.

If you’re looking for a memoir about addiction, scrap Frey’s book and check out An Officer and a Junkie.  Here you’ll find a well-documented story about a humble guy named Mike Winder going through the horrible realities of addiction.

The story begins as his parents drop him off for his first day at West Point Military Academy and chronicles how he became addicted to various drugs. His drug use at first is reminiscent of a Hunter S. Thompson dope journey but changes course as the years of drugs take serious toll on his body, his mind and his relationships with family.

Mike and I grew up together and he was one of my first friends when my family moved to a new town.  We often played hoops together, caused trouble here and there, but also stayed up late occasionally doing homework or studying for physics tests.

The fact is that An Officer and a Junkie simply has more value for people and society. Chances are that, whether you are aware of it or not, you know someone that is an alcoholic or a drug user and functions in his or her everyday life. Some people can even achieve at the highest of levels while simultaneously stuck in the snare of addiction (some examples – Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, and Mickey Mantle).

I saw my friend Mike during most of the stages of his book, from his acceptance to the Academy, his drug abuse, graduation, addiction and recovery. He lives with the physical and mental repercussions of his drug use everyday – his doctors assure him a lifelong sentence of antipsychotic and mood-stabilizing medication – but he is committed to sobriety and living a healthy life.

We all know about the James Frey Oprah debacle. If you think it’s important for a memoir to be true and want to read a good book, check out An Officer and a Junkie.

Which is more important in this case: the story or the truth?

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Eggers and “What is the What?”

Posted by admin on 01.15.2008 at 11:42 am

You may know Dave Eggers from his excellent A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a classic but contemporary Bildungsroman for the Gen-Y-ers.  But did you know that Eggers also founded the 826 Valencia Center?  826 is a wonderful program that I’ll go into more in the future (we volunteer there currently!), but right now what I want to talk about is his latest book: What is the What?

What is the What? tells the true story of Valentino Achak Deng, who was part of the group known as the Lost Boys of Sudan. This group of more than 27,000 boys traveled across Southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya in search of refuge during the Second Sudanese Civil War in the 1980s and 1990s. What is the What is the novelized version of Mr. Deng’s autobiography.”

“One Book, One Philadelphia,” a program in its sixth season, “carefully chooses one book each year to dissect and celebrate. The program aims to unify and educate Philadelphians through reading.”  What is the What was chosen “…in part because of its relevance to the current situation in Darfur, which mimics the recent war in Sudan. The city hopes that the book’s candid representation of violence will resonate with readers and help them to reflect on issues of violence worldwide and within our city. Mr. Eggers praised the “One Book” program, admiring the city’s desire to promote reading on such a large scale.”

(original story and quotes from The Bulletin, Philly’s free newspaper)

Click on the photos for more info on the books and to buy them at BetterWorld.com!

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