1. Hector - The Iliad
Out of the classical epics that have to do with the Trojan War, there are several characters that could potentially go on this list of hotties, because let’s face it — they were pretty badass, and all that fighting has to add hotness points. But Hector is the only one who comes to mind when I think about which ones weren’t total jerks. Achilles? Murderous jerk. Agamemnon? Cheating jerk. Paris? Wimpy jerk. …
HBO’s new feature movie PU-239 is based on a short story by Ken Kalfus, whose dark comedy A Disorder Peculiar to our Country was one of my favorite novels of 2006. PU-239 is no kinder to its characters than Disorder, but this time the setting is post-Soviet Russia and the stakes are higher: a young husband and father is exposed to a toxic dose of radiation in a nuclear power plant accident, and when the bureaucrats who run the plant refuse to compensate …
I’ll be writing about some good new books I’ve been checking out over the next few weeks. Let’s get started:
A Field Guide to the North American Family by Garth Risk Hallberg
This novella is made up of vignettes, illustrated with vivid photos of a suburban milieu and arranged in the form of a guide to some form of exotic wildlife. Which, after all, modern suburban existence actually is, and so Hallberg’s quirky and artistically fragmented narrative makes perfect sense. From page to …
Every once in a while the New York Times Book Review publishes an article for the ages, and Jim Harrison’s thoughtful appreciation of Charles Bukowski’s poetry, which takes the form of a review of the new collection Pleasures of the Damned: Poems 1951-1993, might be one. Harrison wisely begins by speculating that Bukowski’s poetic vision was grounded in his physical homeliness, in the “acne vulgaris” that scarred his young face. Harrison appreciates Bukowski’s “hard found music of the streets” and suggests that …
Q: How did you first become involved in environmental causes, and how did you become involved in the specific cause behind Eco-Libris?
Raz: After I completed my MBA in Tel …
LitKicks is moving to a new software platform. Because our old server was having a lot of trouble keeping up with demand, we were forced to begin this transition before the new site was complete. We will be reassembling the entire site over the next few weeks, and offering some exciting improvements when we do — please be patient and don’t give up on us!
We’re having some tech problems here in the Land of Literary Kicks. I’m experimenting with some new software that will hopefully solve the problem. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep up with regular posting (many new books to talk about) as I work on this.
If you’re a poet trying to contribute a brilliant poem to Action Poetry, you may want to hold off a day or two while I kick the antenna a few times.
Hang in there, and the site …
They have got to be insane. Amazon’s new E-Book Reader, the Kindle, is now out on the market. It’s generating a lot of chatter from OUP Blog to Engadget to Gizmodo to O’Reilly to Silicon Alley Insider to Newsweek, where Steven Levy goes on at some length about the way this device may shake up the mess that is book pricing:
Publishers are resisting the idea of charging less for e-books. “I’m not going along with it,” says …
Last week we considered some evidence that New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus’s apparent sympathy to neo-conservative viewpoints might color the Book Review’s coverage of political books. This week’s publication offers reviews of eight explicitly topical books, God and Gold: Britian, America and the Making of the Modern World by Russell Mead, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy by Charlie Savage, The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country — and …
– Here’s an article that waxes effusive about digitizing books and making them available on the internet. And here’s a related piece about scanning 19th century works to preserve them and make them more widely available.
– The latest installment of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen gets a disappointing review.
– Would you like to read a review of Umberto Eco’s On Ugliness? Now you can.
– Is the new movie version of Beowulf going to suck? I’m not sure… I …
