Stephen King on Carrie, The Shining and the horror

Stephen King

STEPHEN KING on CARRIE, THE SHINING, etc. – Interview By Peter S. Perakos 

[Cinefantastique]

Interview By Peter S. Perakos

If Ray Bradbury is the reigning King of the literature of the fantastic, then Stephen King is the heir apparent to the throne. Among King’s works are the immensely popular ’Salem’s Lot, Carrie, The Shining, and a collection of short stories entitled Night Shift. Carrie, of course, became Brian De Palma’s spectacular film, while Kubrick is currently filming The Shining.Several of the stories in Night Shift will soon be adapted to the screen in not one, but twoseparate productions. In this exclusive interview, Stephen King discusses his past work, his inspirations, his attitudes toward the genre, and his future projects.

The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham / Edward Norton & Naomi Watts

A Movie/Book Review: The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham / Edward Norton & Naomi Watts

NOBYEN / 2018

Should you first read the book, or first watch the movie? Lots of arguments could be given for either side. I'm mostly on the side of the 'book-first', as I love reading and the great books should not be spoiled by images of someone else before you make your own. But not in this case...

I've tried not to put in any spoiler, as I'd encourage everyone to read this book/watch the movie.

Illustration by Pat Kelley

 

The Scent Of Romance: Four Tales of Love In Odessa

By Anna Nemtsova 
October 26, 2016

One of the most respected journalists on the Ukraine and Russian conflict recounts four stories of romance in the city.

I.

It was a foggy salty morning in Odessa. The long, skinny necks of the cranes seemed to be sleepy in the gray mist that wafted in from over the port. As every day between 6 and 7 am, Boris Khodorkovsky was zooming past the Opera House, down the cobblestoned streets of the still quiet town. He dashed along the boulevard, the Quarantine Wall, across the Shevchenko Park towards the Lanzheron beach. As he ran Bach’s music in his earphones. The usual prize for an hour of jogging was a waiting for him on the beach: a refreshing swim. The daily exercise made Khodorkovsky, a CEO and a communication expert, feel good – it calmed his thoughts and his body grew slimmer and healthier by day.

'Feminism is just common sense to me': Maggie O'Farrell at home in Edinburgh. 

Interview

Maggie O'Farrell: 'My writing is tougher and much better since I had children'

The novelist on coping with a literary husband, her dyslexic son – and a hospital visit from Jimmy Savile

Interview by Elizabeth Day
Saturday 23 February 2013

Your new novel, Instructions for a Heatwave, is set during the 1976 heatwave. Did you set out to write in a different historical period?

It wasn't deliberate. I was writing a different book entirely and it was going to be a big novel, spanning continents and time. But it was like radio interference – I kept getting this image of a family sitting round the kitchen table, arguing. It was around the time the Icelandic volcano was erupting and people started behaving so oddly. I've always been interested in how extreme weather affects behaviour. I kept thinking: "This reminds me of something" and I realised it was the 1976 heatwave. I was only four but it had a huge effect on the consciousness of the nation, this sense of unity, that everyone was experiencing it, and I think people do behave strangely, especially in the heat.

Why Johnny Depp lost his libel case in the U.K. but won in the U.S.

 

Johnny Depp at court in Fairfax County, Va.
Photo by Steve Helber

Why Johnny Depp 

lost his libel case 

in the U.K. 

but won in the U.S.

By Elahe Izadi and Sarah Ellison
June 1, 2022 at 9:05 p.m. EDT

The outcome of the Johnny Depp defamation trial turned a bit of celebrity jurisprudence on its head — the long-standing conventional wisdom that it’s easier for a VIP to prevail with a libel claim in the United Kingdom than in the United States.

Amber Heard / I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath.

 

Amber Heard arrives at the premiere of "Aquaman" on Dec. 12 in Los Angeles. (Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Opinion 

 Amber Heard: 

I spoke up against sexual 

violence — and faced 

our culture’s wrath. 

That has to change.

By Amber Heard

December 18, 2018 at 5:58 p.m. ESTEditor’s note, June 2, 2022: In 2019, Johnny Depp sued Amber Heard for defamation arising out of this 2018 op-ed. On June 1, 2022, following a trial in Fairfax County, Va. Circuit Court, a jury found Heard liable on three counts for the following statements, which Depp claimed were false and defamatory: (1) “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” (2) “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” (3) “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” The jury separately found that Depp, through his lawyer Adam Waldman, defamed Heard in one of three counts in her countersuit.

 

CREDIT: GETTY (2)

Martin Scorsese Remembers Goodfellas Star Ray Liotta After His Death: 'He Absolutely Amazed Me'

The legendary director worked with the late actor on the 1990 classic gangster film

By Nigel Smith, Olivia Jakiel and Kara Warner
May 26, 2022 08:21 PM

Martin Scorsese is paying tribute to his Goodfellas star Ray Liotta.

The Emmy Award-winning actor died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic, PEOPLE confirmed Thursday. He was engaged to fiancée Jacy Nittolo, and he was dad to daughter Karsen, 23, with ex-wife Michelle Grace.

 

CREDIT: JOHN LAMPARSKI/GETTY

Ray Liotta Says He's Nothing Like His Tough-Guy Roles: 'I Have Never Been in a Fight'

The actor now stars in the third season of Amazon Prime Video's action-thriller series Hanna

By Julie JordanNovember 24, 2021 10:00 AM

Ray Liotta has made a name for himself playing intense characters over the years.

Though beloved for his role in the 1990 mafia classic Goodfellas, Liotta, 66, is a far cry from his assumed tough-guy demeanor. "I have never been in a fight at all, except for during sports, and that's just pushing and goofy kid stuff," he tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. Now he's starring in the HBO prequel film to The Sopranos, The Many Saints of Newark, and has joined the cast of the third season of Amazon Prime Video's action-thriller series Hanna as new villain Gordon Evans.

The elephant whisperer of Nepal

 

Image by ICIMOD via Nepali Times, used with permission.

The elephant whisperer of Nepal

Saluting a citizen scientist who protects wild elephants

Written byNepali Times

Posted 23 May 2022 12:44 GMT 

This article by Biraj Adhikari, a Research Fellow of ecosystem services at ICIMOD, was first published in Nepali Times. A shortened and edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf / A review

 

Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The 100 best novels written in English / The full list

The 100 best novels / No 50 / Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)

Annabel

May 20, 2022

I've never read a whole book by Virginia Woolf before. I've read a fair few excerpts from a number of her books, in a variety of contexts (she seems to be a popular choice for 'unseen extract' questions in literature exams...), to the extent that I feel actually quite familiar with her tone and style of writing, but this is the first time I've sat down and read one of her novels in its entirety from cover to cover. I can't honestly say that I loved it, but I did find it interesting. And on this blog, I try to value books that interested me just as much as books that I really enjoyed. So here are my thoughts.

'Mrs Dalloway' is set in London in the early 20th Century, and is centred around the titular character Clarissa Dalloway, a society hostess preparing for a house party. As well as following Clarissa, we see another narrative running parallel - that of Septimus Smith, a war veteran who is still haunted by his experiences (today we understand that he is suffering from PTSD; it's clear from the way he's treated that people in his era had no idea). 

Covers / Virginia Woolf / Mrs. Dalloway II

 

Virginia Woolf

MRS. DALLOWAY

The 100 best novels written in English / The full list

The 100 best novels / No 50 / Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)

Retracing Du Bois’ missteps

Radcliffe fellow probes ‘tragedy’ of pioneering African-American scholar’s failed book on WWI

Radcliffe fellow Chad Williams is working on a book about what he considers one of W.E.B. Du Bois’ greatest missteps: “The Black Man and the Wounded World,” an unfinished history of the African-American experience during World War I.

By any measure, W.E.B. Du Bois was an intellectual giant. A historian, writer, editor, teacher, sociologist, and civil rights activist, he was also the first African-American to receive a Harvard Ph.D., co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and author of several groundbreaking books, including “Black Reconstruction in America” (1935).

Philip Roth by David Levine

David Levine

PHILIP ROTH

 

Maaza Mengiste: ‘We’ve become a very visual society.
How many photographs can we take?’

Interview

Maaza Mengiste: ‘The language of war is always masculine’

The Ethiopian-born novelist on her book about the female fightback against Mussolini’s invasion of her homeland, why Instagram blurs the vision, and the lure of Moby-Dick

Alex Preston
Saturday 18 January 2020

Maaza Mengiste’s second novel, The Shadow King, is a reimagination of Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. Told from a range of perspectives, it focuses on the experience of the Ethiopian women who played a vital role in winning the war, as well as that of the Italian soldiers and the exiled king, Haile Selassie. Mengiste was born in Ethiopia in 1974, but her family fled the Ethiopian revolution when she was a child (a history she explored in her first novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze). She lives in New York and spoke to us from Zanzibar.

Lee Child on Jack Reacher / 'I don't like him that much'

 

Lee Child: ‘The best thing to do is not to get too close to the character.’ 
Photograph: Geoffrey Pugh

Lee Child on Jack Reacher: 'I don't like him that much'

Author says he takes a hard-hearted approach to character and planned to kill him off

Alison Flood

Saturday 27 July 2020

Jack Reacher has millions of fans all over the world, but his creator, Lee Child, has revealed he doesn’t “like Reacher that much” and originally planned to end his bestselling thriller series by having his character “bleed out on some filthy motel bathroom floor”.

The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser / Synopsis

 

The Lost Dog

by Michelle de Kretser

Synopsis

Tom Loxley is holed up in a cottage in the bush, trying to finish his book on Henry James, when his dog goes missing, trailing a length of orange twine. As Tom searches it becomes clear that he needs to unravel other puzzles in his life and the story shifts between past and present, taking in his parents' mixed-race marriage in India, their arrival in Australia in the 1970s, Tom's own failed marriage, and his current involvement with Nelly Zhang, an artist with her own secrets and mysteries.

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008.

KOBO

Angela Carter and Natsume Soseki / Finding oneself at home

Angela Carter

Finding oneself at home

Both Angela Carter and Natsume Soseki found new insights into their respective homelands when living abroad. Caryl Phillips reflects on the role of the writer as 'outsider'

Caryl Phillips

Saturday 21 January 2006 01.35 GMT

T

wenty years ago I first visited Toronto. I was attending my first literary festival, and the invitation had arrived by way of my London publisher. Initially, I was sure my publisher had made some terrible mistake and that the invitation was intended for one of its more illustrious authors. Unless I was misreading the letter, the proposal was that I be presented with a free round-trip air ticket from London to Toronto, housed in a grand five-star hotel for a week, paid a generous daily stipend, taken on a variety of outings to places such as Niagara Falls, and furnished with invitations to various parties and dinners celebrating myself and my fellow authors. In exchange for this largesse, I would be expected to read from one of my two novels for a mere 20 minutes and, incredibly enough, for this reading I would also be paid an additional fee. Such was my initiation into the world of literary festivals.

 

Leonor Fini, La Leçon de Botanique (detail), 1974, oil on canvas

Angela Carter and Surrealism by Anna Watz 

Caleb Sivyer

March 2, 2017

Anna Watz. Angela Carter and Surrealism: A Feminist Libertarian Aesthetic. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.

 Scholarly work on Angela Carter has grown enormously since her untimely death in 1992. While a number of introductions to her work appeared throughout the 1990s, such as Sarah Gamble’s Angela Carter: Writing from the Front Line (1997) and Aidan Day’s Angela Carter: The Rational Glass (1998), more recent studies have focused on particular aspects of her work or have sought to unpack the broad range of literary and non-literary influences. Edited volumes such as Rebecca Munford’s Re-Visiting Angela Carter: Texts, Contexts, Intertexts (2006), and Sonya Andermahr and Lawrence Phillips’ Angela Carter: New Critical Readings (2012) have opened up the field of Carter studies by shedding light on the way that she appropriated material from the past.1 As Carter herself put it, “I feel free to loot and rummage in an official past, specifically a literary past, but I like painting and sculptures and the movies and folklore and heresies, too.”2 One thing that Carter “looted” was surrealism, and this aspect of her work has, until now, gone largely unacknowledged. As Anna Watz argues in Angela Carter and Surrealism: A Feminist Libertarian Aesthetic, surrealism has only ever been considered a “marginal influence on Carter’s writing,” something which her book addresses by conducting a comprehensive and engaging study of the way that surrealism permeates Carter’s writing project.3