The movie starring George Clooney (swoon), Ewan McGregor (another swoon), Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges is more of a fictional comedy than Ronson’s mostly non-fiction book which is said to contain some potentially damaging information about the U.S. Army. But come on, we all know that playing songs from Barney & Friends is sheer torture. That’s hardly a state secret.
Ronson hopes that The Men Who Stare at Goats gets people thinking about what goes on behind closed army doors. He says, “It’s all the craziest stuff that’s true. I mean, there actually were a hundred de-bleated goats smuggled into the Special Forces Command Center at Fort Bragg, N.C.; there’s a weapon called the Predator that’s much like the one in the movie; and there’s a connection between the U.S. military and the mass suicide of a cult from San Diego. ”
Bookslut has an interview with Ron Charles from the Washington Post. Ron is Deputy Editor of the Post’s Book World and you’ll also find him on Twitter, but his daughter doesn’t like the idea of her father tweeting. (We follow Ron on Twitter.)
My wife finds it really distracting! My daughter has refused to become a follower of mine; she thinks it’s completely ridiculous that I do this. It came out of that NBCC meeting. I had no idea [before that] what it was at all. I’d just gotten on Facebook to follow my daughter. Twitter sounded absurd, you know, “I had pork and beans tonight,” who cares about this? But [at the NBCC meeting I learned] that professionally you can direct people back to your own site or your reviews, so I decided I’d give it a try.
It is always nice to hear a famous author mentioning in an interview that they buy books from AbeBooks. Today, Philip Roth is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal. Roth’s latest novel is called The Humbling and it is the third book in a quartet after 2006’s Everyman and 2008’s Indignation.
Roth is asked if he is online and he admits to buying groceries and books on the Internet. He purchases from Amazon and buys used books from AbeBooks and also from our friends at Alibris.
It’s wonderful when you want to find something obscure and there it is for $3.98. It’s the greatest book bazaar that has ever existed.
Thank you Mr Roth. He’s 76 and in a unique position as the senior figure of American literature, so I think I should really address him as Mister Roth.
Regarding the excitement around the impending opening of the film adaptation of his book Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak comments, “I kind of want it over. I’m not used to this invasion.”
An interview with Sendak in The Globe and Mail also reveals surprising feelings of resentment towards the popular children’s book. The book which has sold more than 10 million copies since publication in 1963 and has been honoured with the prestigious Caldecott Medal, has overshadowed most of his other work. Work that may merit more attention that that of his 10-sentence tale of Max, who is sent to his room for being naughty and embarks on a marvelous adventure of the imagination.
“At one time, that was a bitter, bitter pill. It no longer is,” says Mr. Sendak. “ Where the Wild Things Are is no longer an enemy. It’s now Spike Jonze’s [the movie's director] and lots of nice people who have become friends.”
Stuff White People Like refuses to die. Today, the book’s author, Christian Lander, is writing in the UK’s Guardian about the blog, the book and his success. I think it was February 2008 when the bloke sitting behind me said we should all take a look at this very funny blog.
Here is one of Christian’s tips for success…
Be perceived as racist by idiots This will lead to more traffic than you could ever imagine. I would, however, strongly recommend not being perceived as racist by smart people. That will end poorly.
It’s a funny book and should be read by all middle class white people. Here is our interview with Lander from last year.
I see entry #128 is camping. (Of course, I went camping twice over the summer. I also recycle, read books, put my daughter into French immersion etc etc. This book charts out my life as a middle class white person)
In theory camping should be a very inexpensive activity since you are literally sleeping on the ground. But as with everything in white culture, the more simple it appears the more expensive it actually is.
My colleague Stephanie Naylor has interviewed author Philippa Gregory, famous for her historical fiction novels and particularly The Other Boleyn Girl. Gregory’s latest novel is called The White Queen as she switches from the Tudors to the Plantagenets.
Three Cups of Tea is generally attributed to Greg Mortenson however, there is another person who should be mentioned - the book was co-authored by David Relin.
In an interview with a Texas newspaper, Relin speaks about Mortenson, education in Pakistan and terrorism. (You’ll also learn why the book is called Three Cups of Tea.)
Thriller author Philip Kerr, whose Berlin Noir books were featured on our list of the top 10 trilogies, is interviewed in the Independent where he compares himself to Jack Torrance from The Shining. Lovely!
Here’s a literary question for you - name the only author in the history of the world who has been sent to prison for stealing and killing a chicken called Alberta? (Answer here)
When asked why there has been a 6-year wait for a sequel to the phenomenally successful The Da Vinci Code, Brown says, “The materials and the ideas are so complicated that it took me a lot of time to process it so that I could use it effectively in a story.”
In another interview with Entertainment Weekly, Brown put it this way, “I will not write a lame follow-up. It could take me 20 years. But I will never turn in a book that I’m not happy with. Four years ago, I wasn’t happy with the book. Five years ago, I wasn’t happy with the book.”
A big, long, interesting interview with Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin in the Independent.
Occasionally, Rankin’s famous friends and his imaginary ones converge. Such as the time when he agreed to write into his novel a real person who had donated a large sum at a charity auction for the privilege. The man, whose name was Peacock Johnson, duly turned up in A Question of Blood – but when Rankin tried to make contact again he had disappeared. A bit of Rebus-style investigation revealed that Peacock Johnson is the alter ego of the bass player of Belle and Sebastian, and that he had subsequently written his own novel in which Rankin turns up as a character who has written about Peacock in a book. “I came across as a bit of a wimp,” Rankin complains. “But it was good. It was also, in current parlance, a mindfuck. You think, ‘Hang on, if he’s not real, and I am real, maybe he’s real and I’m not real…’”
I recently had the opportunity to spend a while talking with Michael Crummey, whose third novel, Galore, was released last month. The Newfoundland and Labrador author is best known for his poetry, but works in fiction as well, and feels as though he’s had Galore building inside of him for years.
The story is the ambitious and encompassing saga of generations of two rival families, the Sellers and the Devines, in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. The characters are vibrant and fascinating, and hand down their stories, traditions and superstitions while remaining ever dependent on the mercy of the ocean. I enjoyed it tremendously and recommend it highly for Newfoundlanders, Canadians, or anyone who loves the art of storytelling done well.
I’m sorry but it’s only Tuesday and I’m exhausted already. I can barely string a sensible word together this morning so here is a sexist thought….Is Sadie Jones even prettier than last year?
The National Post published an interesting interview with Welsh author, Jon Ronson. Ronson’s 2004 book, The Men Who Stare at Goats has been adapted into a feature film and the book is gaining a popularity that it didn’t really experience when it first came out.
Regarding the excitement around the impending opening of the film adaptation of his book 
As the much anticipated 
