Here’s an easy one to bring us back from hiatus into semi-hiatus. I came across this slide-show comparing the original cover designs of classic books and more recent repackaging on a website called Flavorwire (that I came across via the NYTimes Book Bench).
Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category
A Cover By Any Other Design: Redesigned Classic Book Covers (via Flavorwire)
Posted in Literature on July 27, 2010| 6 Comments »
Zeitoun: a Review of a Book about a Man
Posted in Literature, tagged dave eggers, hurricane katrina, institutional malfunction in the face of natural disaster, mcsweeneys, new orleans, zeitoun on December 31, 2009| 3 Comments »
The guy who reads at Running Downhill reviews something actually published within the last 12 months. It just so happens to be a 336 page definition of the work “injustice.” Happy Holidays. 
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Chinese Democracy: an Exegesis, pt 2 – Guest Contributor CT Terry
Posted in How You Know We're Fucked, Literature, Music, tagged axl rose, barry white, bella lugosi, chinese democracy, CT Terry, digital underground, gnr, guns n roses, queen on September 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »
A four part dispatch from guest contributor CT Terry
Part Two: “Modern…but classy”
Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” took the better part of two decades to record and release. It’s a dense, bewildering album that can’t be judged as a whole because there is so much going on, a lot of which is brilliant, but plenty of which is schlock. In an effort to figure out what is going on in this record, and to decide if I like it, I went through it, cataloging and responding to every part of every song.
Book Review: Sputnik Sweetheart
Posted in Literature on August 4, 2009| 1 Comment »
To quote Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, “Oh weirdness. Protect me from more weirdness.”
Making Myth out of Mediocrity: Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” (the book starring Viggo Mortensen)
Posted in Leisure, Literature, tagged all the pretty horses, blood meridian, book review, cormac mccarthy, No Country For Old Men, oprahs book club, the road, westerns on May 21, 2009| 2 Comments »
Cormac McCarthy has been writing novels since the 1960s. His first, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1965. That and almost all of his subsequent works have been bleak, set in harsh environments, tales of the darker aspects of humanity. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, and in 1985 he published Blood Meridian, his most acclaimed novel (until now, you will please note). 1996 saw All The Pretty Horses, for which McCarthy won the National Book Award. In 2006, Blood Meridian was named to The New York Times Magazine’s list of the best novels of the past quarter-century. In 2006, plans were announced to adapt his book from 2005, No County For Old Men, for the screen. This, in turn, made McCarthy the Most Famous Writer in the World. Since he was now the MFWW, his 2006 book, The Road, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Plans for a film version were announced in 2007. In 2009, I read it.
Book Review: “Tropic of Cancer” by Henry Miller
Posted in Leisure, Literature, tagged censorship, charles bukowski, chuck palahnuik, excerbikes, henry miller, hubert selby jr, paris, post office, tropic of cancer, william burroughs on March 11, 2009| 2 Comments »
The other day, I was reading this on the bicycle machiney thing in the tiny gym in the basement of my office building. Two students were in there, and they kept looking at the book weird, and I couldn’t really figure out why. Then, when I went into the locker room, I overheard their conversation for just a second: “Did you see that guy? He was reading porn or something.” I had forgot about the tit on the cover.
Oh yeah, that thing. I forgot about that thing.
What We’ve Been Watching: Special September Bumper Edition
Posted in Cinema, Fashion, Literature, Television, The Internet, tagged 007, baby boomers, big z, black sox, contemporary westerns, entourage, funny har-har, gene wilder, h & m, japan, literacy, netflix, roger deakins, yu darvish on September 16, 2008| 8 Comments »
We’ve been a little lax here at RD about keeping you up to date on things that we’ve seen. In penance, we present to you a giant-size Bumper Edition of “What We’ve Been Watching”.
What We’ve Been Watching, August 25, 2008
Posted in Cinema, Literature, Television, tagged bigelow, bubble boy, days of heaven, generation kill, henriksen, man on wire, medium cool, near dark, petit, the wire, wexler on August 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »
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