An author’s death rarely means the end of original works from them – The Pale King by David Foster Wallace is the latest and greatest example.
A dusty, forgotten manuscript found in a cardboard box soon becomes a bestseller. Sometimes the author’s talent goes unrecognized and success comes after their death. This broad selection – ranging from Agatha Christie to Dorothy L. Sayers – covers literature published posthumously. Learn more.
The Literary Review has posted a lengthy interview with Nobel and Booker Prize winning author V.S. Naipaul in which he talks about his latest book The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief and his interest in the continent.
Some censored gay sex references from the original and never published version of From Here to Eternity by James Jones are to be restored to the text for a new edition, reports The Guardian. The passages that were cut out were pretty tame by modern standards. I can’t see why it taken this long but life was rather different in 1951.
Jones’s editor at Scribner refused to allow the scenes to be included, and also excised various swear words originally intended to be included in the dialogue. In America at the time the US postal service would not carry material it considered obscene, making it impossible for books the organisation thought offensive to be distributed.
I see Jennifer Garner is going to play Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple is a new Disney movie. How can I put this? Garner is 38 and as fit as a butcher’s dog. Miss Marple is…well… an old crone. Remember Margaret Rutherford playing Miss Marple!
Miss Marple is supposed to be a spinster who lives in the English village of St. Mary Mead. Jennifer Garner is going to toss that old maid thing out the window.
No doubt we’ll be seeing Miss Marple in a bikini or using some kick boxing techniques on the bad guys. I hope there isn’t a Miss Marple sex scene because it’s just wrong and makes me feel rather queasy.
Agatha Christie is turning in her grave and I can think of few folks at Disney who should join her.
This writer, famous for Brick Lane, has let herself go.
