Fiction

Saul Bellow — Ravelstein — Videos

Posted on March 16, 2015. Filed under: American History, Blogroll, Book, Books, Culture, Faith, Family, Fiction, history, People, Philosophy, Photos, Press, Raves, Talk Radio, Video, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

bellowsSaul-Bellow bellows_2ravelsteinSaul Bellow - Ravelsteinsaul-bellow-wife daughterSaul-Bellow (1)principal-saul-bellow_grande Ravelstein

Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow reads his fiction

Saul Bellow Interview

Saul Bellow

Norman Manea, Great Jewish Writers of Our Time Series: Excerpts from an Interview with Saul Bellow

The Greatest American Essays: Saul Bellow (Herzog, Seize the Day, Humboldt’s Gift) (1998)

Saul Bellow (June 10, 1915 — April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times and he received the Foundation’s lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990.

In the words of the Swedish Nobel Committee, his writing exhibited “the mixture of rich picaresque novel and subtle analysis of our culture, of entertaining adventure, drastic and tragic episodes in quick succession interspersed with philosophic conversation, all developed by a commentator with a witty tongue and penetrating insight into the outer and inner complications that drive us to act, or prevent us from acting, and that can be called the dilemma of our age.” His best-known works include The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Seize the Day, Humboldt’s Gift and Ravelstein. Widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest authors, Bellow has had a “huge literary influence.”

Bellow said that of all his characters Eugene Henderson, of “Henderson the Rain King,” was the one most like himself. Bellow grew up as an insolent slum kid, a “thick-necked” rowdy, and an immigrant from Quebec. As Christopher Hitchens describes it, Bellow’s fiction and principal characters reflect his own yearning for transcendence, a battle “to overcome not just ghetto conditions but also ghetto psychoses.” Bellow’s protagonists, in one shape or another, all wrestle with what Corde (Albert Corde, the dean in “The Dean’s December”) called “the big-scale insanities of the 20th century.” This transcendence of the “unutterably dismal” (a phrase from Dangling Man) is achieved, if it can be achieved at all, through a “ferocious assimilation of learning” (Hitchens) and an emphasis on nobility.

In 1989, Bellow received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.

Bellow attended the University of Chicago but later transferred to Northwestern University. He originally wanted to study literature, but he felt the English department was anti-Jewish. Instead, he graduated with honors in anthropology and sociology. It has been suggested Bellow’s study of anthropology had an influence on his literary style, and anthropological references pepper his works. Bellow later did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Paraphrasing Bellow’s description of his close friend Allan Bloom (see Ravelstein), John Podhoretz has said that both Bellow and Bloom “inhaled books and ideas the way the rest of us breathe air.”

In the 1930s, Bellow was part of the Chicago branch of the Works Progress Administration Writer’s Project, which included such future Chicago literary luminaries as Richard Wright and Nelson Algren. Many of the writers were radical: if they were not members of the Communist Party USA, they were sympathetic to the cause. Bellow was a Trotskyist, but because of the greater numbers of Stalinist-leaning writers he had to suffer their taunts.

In 1941 Bellow became a naturalized US citizen. In 1943, Maxim Lieber was his literary agent.

During World War II, Bellow joined the merchant marine and during his service he completed his first novel, Dangling Man (1944) about a young Chicago man waiting to be drafted for the war.

From 1946 through 1948 Bellow taught at the University of Minnesota, living on Commonwealth Avenue, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In 1948, Bellow was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed him to move to Paris, where he began writing The Adventures of Augie March (1953). Critics have remarked on the resemblance between Bellow’s picaresque novel and the great 17th Century Spanish classic Don Quixote. The book starts with one of American literature’s most famous opening paragraphs, and it follows its titular character through a series of careers and encounters, as he lives by his wits and his resolve. Written in a colloquial yet philosophical style, The Adventures of Augie March established Bellow’s reputation as a major author.

In the late 1950s he taught creative writing at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. One of his students was William Kennedy, who was encouraged by Bellow to write fiction.

Christopher Hitchens Book TV aired 11/3/2007 Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saul Bellow
SaulBellow.jpg
Born Solomon Bellows
10 June 1915
Lachine, Quebec, Canada
Died 5 April 2005 (aged 89)
Brookline, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation Writer
Nationality Canadian/American
Alma mater University of Chicago
Northwestern University
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Literature
1976
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
1976
National Medal of Arts
1988
National Book Award
1954, 1965, 1971
Spouse Anita Goshkin (1937–56), Alexandra (Sondra) Tschacbasov (1956–59), Susan Glassman (1961–64), Alexandra Bagdasar Ionescu Tulcea (1974–85), Janis Freedman (1989–2005)
Signature

Saul Bellow (10 June 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts.[1] He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times[2] and he received the Foundation’s lifetimeMedal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990.[3]

In the words of the Swedish Nobel Committee, his writing exhibited “the mixture of rich picaresque novel and subtle analysis of our culture, of entertaining adventure, drastic and tragic episodes in quick succession interspersed with philosophic conversation, all developed by a commentator with a witty tongue and penetrating insight into the outer and inner complications that drive us to act, or prevent us from acting, and that can be called the dilemma of our age.”[4] His best-known works includeThe Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Seize the Day, Humboldt’s Gift and Ravelstein. Widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest authors, Bellow has had a “huge literary influence.”[5]

Bellow said that of all his characters Eugene Henderson, of Henderson the Rain King, was the one most like himself.[6] Bellow grew up as an insolent slum kid, a “thick-necked” rowdy, and an immigrant from Quebec. As Christopher Hitchens describes it, Bellow’s fiction and principal characters reflect his own yearning for transcendence, a battle “to overcome not just ghetto conditions but also ghetto psychoses.”[7][8] Bellow’s protagonists, in one shape or another, all wrestle with what Corde (Albert Corde, the dean in “The Dean’s December”) called “the big-scale insanities of the 20th century.” This transcendence of the “unutterably dismal” (a phrase from Dangling Man) is achieved, if it can be achieved at all, through a “ferocious assimilation of learning” (Hitchens) and an emphasis on nobility.

§Biography

§Early life

Saul Bellow was born Solomon Bellows[9][10] in Lachine, Quebec, two years after his parents, Lescha (née Gordin) and Abraham Bellows,[11] emigrated from Saint Petersburg, Russia. (He changed his name in 1936.)[9][10] Bellow celebrated his birthday in June, although he may have been born in July (in the Jewish community, it was customary to record the Hebrew date of birth, which does not always coincide with the Gregorian calendar).[12] Of his family’s emigration, Bellow wrote:

“ The retrospective was strong in me because of my parents. They were both full of the notion that they were falling, falling. They had been prosperous cosmopolitans in Saint Petersburg. My mother could never stop talking about the family dacha, her privileged life, and how all that was now gone. She was working in the kitchen. Cooking, washing, mending… There had been servants in Russia… But you could always transpose from your humiliating condition with the help of a sort of embittered irony.[13] ”

A period of illness from a respiratory infection at age eight both taught him self-reliance (he was a very fit man despite his sedentary occupation) and provided an opportunity to satisfy his hunger for reading: reportedly, he decided to be a writer when he first read Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

When Bellow was nine, his family moved to the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago, the city that formed the backdrop of many of his novels.[10] Bellow’s father, Abraham, was an onion importer. He also worked in a bakery, as a coal delivery man, and as a bootlegger.[10] Bellow’s mother, Liza, died when he was 17. He was left with his father and brother Maurice. His mother was deeply religious, and wanted her youngest son, Saul, to become a rabbi or a concert violinist. But he rebelled against what he later called the “suffocating orthodoxy” of his religious upbringing, and he began writing at a young age.[10] Bellow’s lifelong love for the Bible began at four when he learned Hebrew. Bellow also grew up reading William Shakespeare and the great Russian novelists of the 19th century.[10] In Chicago, he took part inanthroposophical studies. Bellow attended Tuley High School on Chicago’s west side where he befriended fellow writer Isaac Rosenfeld. In his 1959 novel Henderson the Rain King, Bellow modeled the character King Dahfu on Rosenfeld.[14]

§Education and early career

Bellow attended the University of Chicago but later transferred to Northwestern University. He originally wanted to study literature, but he felt the English department was anti-Jewish. Instead, he graduated with honors in anthropology and sociology.[15] It has been suggested Bellow’s study of anthropology had an influence on his literary style, and anthropological references pepper his works.[citation needed] Bellow later did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Paraphrasing Bellow’s description of his close friend Allan Bloom (see Ravelstein), John Podhoretz has said that both Bellow and Bloom “inhaled books and ideas the way the rest of us breathe air.”[16]

In the 1930s, Bellow was part of the Chicago branch of the Works Progress Administration Writer’s Project, which included such future Chicago literary luminaries as Richard Wright and Nelson Algren. Many of the writers were radical: if they were not members of the Communist Party USA, they were sympathetic to the cause. Bellow was a Trotskyist, but because of the greater numbers of Stalinist-leaning writers he had to suffer their taunts.[17]

In 1941 Bellow became a naturalized US citizen.[18] In 1943, Maxim Lieber was his literary agent.

During World War II, Bellow joined the merchant marine and during his service he completed his first novel, Dangling Man (1944) about a young Chicago man waiting to be drafted for the war.

From 1946 through 1948 Bellow taught at the University of Minnesota, living on Commonwealth Avenue, in St. Paul, Minnesota.[19]

In 1948, Bellow was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed him to move to Paris, where he began writing The Adventures of Augie March (1953). Critics have remarked on the resemblance between Bellow’s picaresque novel and the great 17th Century Spanish classic Don Quixote.[citation needed] The book starts with one of American literature’s most famous opening paragraphs,[citation needed] and it follows its titular character through a series of careers and encounters, as he lives by his wits and his resolve. Written in a colloquial yet philosophical style, The Adventures of Augie March established Bellow’s reputation as a major author.

In the spring term of 1961 he taught creative writing at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras.[20] One of his students was William Kennedy, who was encouraged by Bellow to write fiction.

§Return to Chicago and mid-career

Bellow lived in New York City for a number of years, but he returned to Chicago in 1962 as a professor at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. The committee’s goal was to have professors work closely with talented graduate students on a multi-disciplinary approach to learning. Bellow taught on the committee for more than 30 years, alongside his close friend, the philosopher Allan Bloom.

There were also other reasons for Bellow’s return to Chicago, where he moved into the Hyde Park neighborhood with his third wife, Susan Glassman. Bellow found Chicago vulgar but vital, and more representative of America than New York.[21] He was able to stay in contact with old high school friends and a broad cross-section of society. In a 1982 profile, Bellow’s neighborhood was described as a high-crime area in the city’s center, and Bellow maintained he had to live in such a place as a writer and “stick to his guns.”[22]

Bellow hit the bestseller list in 1964 with his novel Herzog. Bellow was surprised at the commercial success of this cerebral novel about a middle-aged and troubled college professor who writes letters to friends, scholars and the dead, but never sends them. Bellow returned to his exploration of mental instability, and its relationship to genius, in his 1975 novel Humboldt’s Gift. Bellow used his late friend and rival, the brilliant but self-destructive poet Delmore Schwartz, as his model for the novel’s title character, Von Humboldt Fleisher.[23] Bellow also used Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science, anthroposophy, as a theme in the book, having attended a study group in Chicago. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1969.[24]

§Nobel Prize and later career

Saul Bellow (left) with Keith Botsford, around 1992

Propelled by the success of Humboldt’s Gift, Bellow won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1976. In the 70-minute address he gave to an audience in Stockholm, Sweden, Bellow called on writers to be beacons for civilization and awaken it from intellectual torpor.[23]

The following year, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Bellow for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government’s highest honor for achievement in thehumanities. Bellow’s lecture was entitled “The Writer and His Country Look Each Other Over.”[25]

Bellow traveled widely throughout his life, mainly to Europe, which he sometimes visited twice a year.[23] As a young man, Bellow went to Mexico City to meet Leon Trotsky, but the expatriate Russian revolutionary was assassinated the day before they were to meet. Bellow’s social contacts were wide and varied. He tagged along with Robert F. Kennedy for a magazine profile he never wrote, he was close friends with the author Ralph Ellison. His many friends included the journalist Sydney J. Harris and the poet John Berryman.[citation needed]

While sales of Bellow’s first few novels were modest, that turned around with Herzog. Bellow continued teaching well into his old age, enjoying its human interaction and exchange of ideas. He taught at Yale University, University of Minnesota, New York University, Princeton University, University of Puerto Rico, University of Chicago, Bard College and Boston University, where he co-taught a class with James Wood (‘modestly absenting himself’ when it was time to discuss Seize the Day). In order to take up his appointment at Boston, Bellow moved in 1993 from Chicago to Brookline, Massachusetts, where he died on 5 April 2005, at age 89. He is buried at the Jewish cemetery Shir HeHarim of Brattleboro, Vermont.

Bellow was married five times, with all but his last marriage ending in divorce. His son by his first marriage, Greg Bellow, became a psychotherapist; Greg Bellow published Saul Bellow’s Heart: A Son’s Memoir in 2013, nearly a decade after his father’s death.[26] Bellow’s son by his second marriage, Adam, published a nonfiction book In Praise of Nepotism in 2003. Bellow’s wives were Anita Goshkin, Alexandra (Sondra) Tsachacbasov, Susan Glassman, Alexandra Ionescu Tulcea and Janis Freedman. In 1999, when he was 84, Bellow had a daughter, Rosie, his fourth child, with Freedman.

While he read voluminously, Bellow also played the violin and followed sports. Work was a constant for him, but he at times toiled at a plodding pace on his novels, frustrating the publishing company.[23]

His early works earned him the reputation as a major novelist of the 20th century, and by his death he was widely regarded as one of the greatest living novelists.[27] He was the first writer to win three National Book Awards in all award categories.[2] His friend and protege Philip Roth has said of him, “The backbone of 20th-century American literature has been provided by two novelists—William Faulkner and Saul Bellow. Together they are the Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain of the 20th century.” James Wood, in a eulogy of Bellow in The New Republic, wrote:[28]

“ I judged all modern prose by his. Unfair, certainly, because he made even the fleet-footed—the Updikes, the DeLillos, the Roths—seem like monopodes. Yet what else could I do? I discovered Saul Bellow’s prose in my late teens, and henceforth, the relationship had the quality of a love affair about which one could not keep silent. Over the last week, much has been said about Bellow’s prose, and most of the praise—perhaps because it has been overwhelmingly by men—has tended toward the robust: We hear about Bellow’s mixing of high and low registers, his Melvillean cadences jostling the jivey Yiddish rhythms, the great teeming democracy of the big novels, the crooks and frauds and intellectuals who loudly people the brilliant sensorium of the fiction. All of this is true enough; John Cheever, in his journals, lamented that, alongside Bellow’s fiction, his stories seemed like mere suburban splinters. Ian McEwan wisely suggested last week that British writers and critics may have been attracted to Bellow precisely because he kept alive a Dickensian amplitude now lacking in the English novel. […] But nobody mentioned the beauty of this writing, its music, its high lyricism, its firm but luxurious pleasure in language itself. […] [I]n truth, I could not thank him enough when he was alive, and I cannot now. ”

§Themes and style

The author’s works speak to the disorienting nature of modern civilization, and the countervailing ability of humans to overcome their frailty and achieve greatness (or at least awareness). Bellow saw many flaws in modern civilization, and its ability to foster madness, materialism and misleading knowledge.[29] Principal characters in Bellow’s fiction have heroic potential, and many times they stand in contrast to the negative forces of society. Often these characters are Jewish and have a sense of alienation or otherness.

Jewish life and identity is a major theme in Bellow’s work, although he bristled at being called a “Jewish writer.” Bellow’s work also shows a great appreciation of America, and a fascination with the uniqueness and vibrancy of the American experience.

Bellow’s work abounds in references and quotes from the likes of Marcel Proust and Henry James, but he offsets these high-culture references with jokes.[10] Bellow interspersed autobiographical elements into his fiction, and many of his principal characters were said to bear a resemblance to him.

§Criticism, controversy and conservative cultural activism[edit]

Martin Amis described Bellow as “The greatest American author ever, in my view”.[30]

“ His sentences seem to weigh more than anyone else’s. He is like a force of nature… He breaks all the rules […] [T]he people in Bellow’s fiction are real people, yet the intensity of the gaze that he bathes them in, somehow through the particular, opens up into the universal.[31] ”

For Linda Grant, “What Bellow had to tell us in his fiction was that it was worth it, being alive.”

“ His vigour, vitality, humour and passion were always matched by the insistence on thought, not the predigested cliches of the mass media or of those on the left, which had begun to disgust him by the Sixties… It’s easy to be a ‘writer of conscience’—anyone can do it if they want to; just choose your cause. Bellow was a writer about conscience and consciousness, forever conflicted by the competing demands of the great cities, the individual’s urge to survival against all odds and his equal need for love and some kind of penetrating understanding of what there was of significance beyond all the racket and racketeering.[32] ”

On the other hand, Bellow’s detractors considered his work conventional and old-fashioned, as if the author was trying to revive the 19th-century European novel. In a private letter, Vladimir Nabokov once referred to Bellow as a “miserable mediocrity.”[33] Journalist and author Ron Rosenbaum described Bellow’s Ravelstein (2000) as the only book that rose above Bellow’s failings as an author. Rosenbaum wrote,

“ My problem with the pre-Ravelstein Bellow is that he all too often strains too hard to yoke together two somewhat contradictory aspects of his being and style. There’s the street-wise Windy City wiseguy and then—as if to show off that the wiseguy has Wisdom—there are the undigested chunks of arcane, not entirely impressive, philosophic thought and speculation. Just to make sure you know his novels have intellectual heft. That the world and the flesh in his prose are both figured and transfigured.[34] ”

Sam Tanenhaus wrote in New York Times Book Review in 2007:

“ But what, then, of the many defects—the longueurs and digressions, the lectures on anthroposophy and religion, the arcane reading lists? What of the characters who don’t change or grow but simply bristle onto the page, even the colorful lowlifes pontificating like fevered students in the seminars Bellow taught at the University of Chicago? And what of the punitively caricatured ex-wives drawn from the teeming annals of the novelist’s own marital discord? ”

But, Tanenhaus went on to answer his question:

“ Shortcomings, to be sure. But so what? Nature doesn’t owe us perfection. Novelists don’t either. Who among us would even recognize perfection if we saw it? In any event, applying critical methods, of whatever sort, seemed futile in the case of an author who, as Randall Jarrell once wrote of Walt Whitman, is a world, a waste with, here and there, systems blazing at random out of the darkness—those systems as beautifully and astonishingly organized as the rings and satellites of Saturn.[35] ”

V. S. Pritchett praised Bellow, finding his shorter works to be his best. Pritchett called Bellow’s novella Seize the Day a “small gray masterpiece.”[10]

As he grew older, Bellow moved decidedly away from leftist politics and became identified with cultural conservatism.[23][36][37] His opponents included feminism, campus activism[38] and postmodernism.[39] Bellow also thrust himself into the often contentious realm of Jewish and African-American relations.[40] Bellow has also been critical of multiculturalism and once said: “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of thePapuans? I’d be glad to read him.”[41]

Despite his identification with Chicago, he kept aloof from some of that city’s more conventional writers. In a 2006 interview with Stop Smiling magazine, Studs Terkel said of Bellow: “I didn’t know him too well. We disagreed on a number of things politically. In the protests in the beginning of Norman Mailer‘s Armies of the Night, when Mailer, Robert Lowell and Paul Goodman were marching to protest the Vietnam War, Bellow was invited to a sort of counter-gathering. He said, ‘Of course I’ll attend’. But he made a big thing of it. Instead of just saying OK, he was proud of it. So I wrote him a letter and he didn’t like it. He wrote me a letter back. He called me a Stalinist. But otherwise, we were friendly. He was a brilliant writer, of course. I love Seize the Day.”

§Awards and honors

§Bibliography

For a complete list of works, see Bibliography of Saul Bellow.

§Novels and novellas

§Short story collections

  • Mosby’s Memoirs (1968)
  • Him with His Foot in His Mouth (1984)
  • Something to Remember Me By: Three Tales (1991)
  • Collected Stories (2001)

§Plays

  • The Last Analysis (1965)

§Library of America editions

  • Novels 1944–1953: Dangling Man, The Victim, The Adventures of Augie March (2003)
  • Novels 1956–1964: Seize the Day, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog (2007)
  • Novels 1970–1982: Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Humboldt’s Gift, The Dean’s December (2010)
  • Novels 1984–2000: What Kind of Day Did You Have?, More Die of Heartbreak, A Theft, The Bellarosa Connection, The Actual, Ravelstein (2014)

§Translations

§Non-fiction

  • To Jerusalem and Back (1976), memoir
  • It All Adds Up (1994), essay collection
  • Saul Bellow: Letters, edited by Benjamin Taylor (2010), correspondence

§Works about Saul Bellow

  • Saul Bellow’s Heart: A Son’s Memoir, Greg Bellow, 2013 ISBN 978-1608199952
  • Saul Bellow, Tony Tanner (1965) (see also his City of Words [1971])
  • Saul Bellow, Malcolm Bradbury (1982)
  • Saul Bellow Drumlin Woodchuck,Mark Harris, University of Georgia Press. (1982)
  • Saul Bellow: Modern Critical Views, Harold Bloom (Ed.) (1986)
  • Handsome Is: Adventures with Saul Bellow, Harriet Wasserman (1997)
  • Saul Bellow and the Decline of Humanism, Michael K Glenday (1990)
  • Saul Bellow: A Biography of the Imagination, Ruth Miller, St. Martins Pr. (1991)
  • Bellow: A Biography, James Atlas (2000)
  • Saul Bellow and American Transcendentalism, M.A. Quayum (2004)
  • “Even Later” and “The American Eagle” in Martin Amis, The War Against Cliché (2001) are celebratory. The latter essay is also found in the Everyman’s Library edition of Augie March.
  • ‘Saul Bellow’s comic style’: James Wood in The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel, 2004. ISBN 0-224-06450-9.
  • The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction: The Works of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo , Stephanie Halldorson (2007)
  • Saul Bellow a song, written by Sufjan Stevens on The Avalanche

§See also

§References

  1. Jump up^ University of Chicago accolades — National Medal of Arts. Retrieved 2008-03-08.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b “National Book Award Winners: 1950–2009”. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-12.
  3. Jump up^ “Distinguished Contribution to American Letters”. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-12.
  4. Jump up^ [1] Press Release: The Nobel Prize in Literature, 1976, Swedish Academy
  5. Jump up^ Obituary: Saul Bellow BBC News, Tuesday, 5 April 2005
  6. Jump up^ [2], Mel Gussow and Charles McGrath[2005] , in Saul Bellow, Who Breathed Life into American Novel, Dies at 89.”
  7. Jump up^ Arguably: Essays, Christopher Hitchens[2011], “Saul Bellow: The Great Assimilator”, Atlantic Books, 2011 ISBN 9780857892577
  8. Jump up^ “Jewish American titan from the ghetto” By Christopher Hitchens, 30 December 30, 2011
  9. ^ Jump up to:a b Library of America Bellow Novels 1944–1953 Pg.1000.
  10. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h Mel Gussow and Charles McGrath, Saul Bellow, Who Breathed Life Into American Novel, Dies at 89, The New York Times6 April 2005. Retrieved 2008-10-21.
  11. Jump up^ [3]
  12. Jump up^ The New York Times obituary, 6 April 2005. “…his birthdate is listed as either June or July 10, 1915, though his lawyer, Mr. Pozen, said yesterday that Mr. Bellow customarily celebrated in June. (Immigrant Jews at that time tended to be careless about the Christian calendar, and the records are inconclusive.)”
  13. Jump up^ Saul Bellow, It All Adds Up (Penguin, 2007), pp. 295–6.
  14. Jump up^ “Isaac Rosenfeld’s Dybbuk and Rethinking Literary Biography”, Zipperstein, Steven J. (2002). Partisan Review 49 (1). Retrieved 2010-10-17.
  15. Jump up^ The New York Times obituary, 6 April 2005. “He had hoped to study literature but was put off by what he saw as the tweedy anti-Semitism of the English department, and graduated in 1937 with honors in anthropology and sociology, subjects that were later to instill his novels.”
  16. Jump up^ timesonline.co.uk: Saul Bellow, a neocon’s tale
  17. Jump up^ Drew, Bettina. Nelson Algren, A Life on the Wild Side. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991
  18. Jump up^ Slater, Elinor; Robert Slater (1996). “SAUL BELLOW: Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature”. Great Jewish Men. Jonathan David Company. p. 42. ISBN 0-8246-0381-8. Retrieved 21 October 2007.
  19. Jump up^ (Life and Works). Saul Bellow Journal.[dead link]
  20. Jump up^ Bellow, Saul (2010). Saul Bellow: Letters. redactor Ben Taylor. New York: Viking. ISBN 9781101445327. Retrieved 12 July 2014. […] Puerto Rico, where he was spending the spring term of 1961.
  21. Jump up^ The New York Times Book Review, 13 December 1981
  22. Jump up^ Vogue, March 1982
  23. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Atlas, James. Bellow: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2000.
  24. Jump up^ “Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B”. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 30 May 2011.
  25. Jump up^ Jefferson Lecturers at NEH Website . Retrieved 22 January 2009.
  26. Jump up^ Woods, James (22 July 2013). “Sins of the Fathers: Do great novelists make bad parents?”. The New Yorker. Retrieved30 December 2014.
  27. Jump up^ ‘He was the first true immigrant voice’ The Observer, Sunday 10 April 2005
  28. Jump up^ Wood, James, ‘Gratitude’, New Republic, 00286583, 25 April 2005, Vol. 232, Issue 15
  29. Jump up^ Malin, Irving. Saul Bellow’s Fiction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969
  30. Jump up^ Martin Amis Author of Yellow Dog talks with Robert Birnbaum 8 December 2003, by Robert Birnbaum
  31. Jump up^ Martin Amis Author of Yellow Dog talks with Robert Birnbaum,Identity Theory, December 8, 2003, by Robert Birnbaum
  32. Jump up^ ‘He was the first true immigrant voice’ Linda grant, The Observer, Sunday 10 April 2005
  33. Jump up^ Wood, James (1 February 1990) “Private Strife.” Guardian Unlimited.
  34. Jump up^ Rosenbaum, Ron. “Saul Bellow and the Bad Fish.” Slate. 3 April 2007
  35. Jump up^ Tanenhaus, Sam (February 4, 2007) “Beyond Criticism.” New York Times Book Review.
  36. Jump up^ Review: The Joan Peters Case, Edward W. Said, Journal of Palestine Studies, 15:2 (Winter, 1986), pp. 144–150. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
  37. Jump up^ The Fate of an Honest Intellectual, Noam Chomsky (2002), inUnderstanding Power, The New Press, pp. 244–248. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
  38. Jump up^ “Campus Activism”. Campus Activism. Retrieved 28 February 2010.
  39. Jump up^ “The New American McCarthyism: policing thought about the Middle East”.
  40. Jump up^ Ahmed, Azam and Ron Grossman (5 October 2007) “Bellow’s remarks on race haunt legacy in Hyde Park.” Chicago Tribune.
  41. Jump up^ John Blades (19 June 1994). “Bellow’s Latest Chapter”. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 1 October 2012.
  42. Jump up^ “National Book Awards — 1954”. National Book Foundation (NBF). Retrieved 2012-03-03. (With essay by Nathaniel Rich from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
  43. Jump up^ “National Book Awards — 1965”. NBF. Retrieved 2012-03-03. (With acceptance speech by Bellow and essay by Salvatore Scibona from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
  44. Jump up^ “National Book Awards — 1971”. NBF. Retrieved 2012-03-03. (With essay by Craig Morgan Teicher from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
  45. Jump up^ “History”. Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-03-30.

§External links

 This article’s use of external links may not follow Wikipedia’s policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriateexternal links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (May 2011)
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Saul Bellow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bellow

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George — Interface

Posted on February 25, 2015. Filed under: Blogroll, Books, College, Communications, Computers, Documentary, Economics, Education, Employment, Family, Federal Government, Fiction, Freedom, Friends, history, Investments, Law, liberty, Life, Links, media, Money, People, Photos, Politics, Raves, Resources, Reviews, Systems, Talk Radio, Video, Wealth, Welfare, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , |

stephensonInterface-Neal-Stephenson-Paperback15-lge neal-stephenson

Neal Stephenson on Optimism

Neal Stephenson Discusses Why His Novels Haven’t Been Made Into Movies

Neal Stephenson – “We Are All Geeks Now.”

Neal Stephenson on Anathem: The genesis of the novel and its main ideas

Neal Stephenson Creates a New Language for ANATHEM

Authors@Google: Neal Stephenson

Authors Neal Stephenson visits Google’s Headquarters in Mountain View, Ca, to discuss his book “Anathem”. This event took place September 12, 2008, as part of the Authors@google series. For more info, please visit http://www.nealstephenson.com/

Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable—yet strangely inverted—world.

Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside “saecular” world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent’s walls. Three times during history’s darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside—the Extramuros—for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.

Neal Stephenson is the author of seven previous novels. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Neal Stephenson interview – Reamde

Solve for X: Neal Stephenson on getting big stuff done

Neal Stephenson: 2011 National Book Festival

2012 10 18 LTA Bookclub Neal StephensonHQ

Black Hat USA 2012 – An Interview with Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson, Author – Turing Festival 2013 Keynote

ASTC 2013 Keynote – A Conversation with Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson is Awesome

 

Neal Stephenson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson 2008 crop.jpg
Stephenson at Science Foo Camp 2008

BornNeal Town Stephenson
October 31, 1959 (age 55)
Fort Meade, Maryland, United StatesPen nameStephen Bury
(with J. Frederick George)OccupationNovelist, short story writer, essayistNationalityAmericanPeriod1984–presentGenreSpeculative fiction, historical fiction, essaysLiterary movementcyberpunk, postcyberpunk,maximalismWebsitenealstephenson.com

Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer and game designer known for his works of speculative fiction.

His novels have been variously categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and “postcyberpunk“. Other labels, such as “baroque“, often appear.

Stephenson explores subjects such as mathematics, cryptography, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired.

He has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff Bezos) developing a manned sub-orbital launch system, and is also a cofounder ofSubutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project The Mongoliad. He has also written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury (“J. Frederick George”), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury.

Life

Born on October 31, 1959 in Fort Meade, Maryland,[1] Stephenson came from a family of engineers and scientists; his father is a professor of electrical engineering while his paternal grandfather was a physics professor. His mother worked in a biochemistry laboratory, and her father was a biochemistry professor. Stephenson’s family moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1960 and then in 1966 to Ames, Iowa. He graduated from Ames High School in 1977.[2]

Stephenson studied at Boston University,[2] first specializing in physics, then switching to geography after he found that it would allow him to spend more time on the university mainframe.[3] He graduated in 1981 with a B.A. in geography and a minor in physics.[2] Since 1984, Stephenson has lived mostly in the Pacific Northwest and currently resides in Seattle with his family.[2]

Career

Discussing Anathem at MIT in 2008

Stephenson’s first novel, The Big U, published in 1984, was a satirical take on life at American Megaversity, a vast, bland and alienating research university beset by chaotic riots.[4][5] His next novel, Zodiac (1988), was a thriller following the exploits of a radical environmentalist protagonist in his struggle against corporate polluters.[4] Neither novel attracted much critical attention on first publication, but showcased concerns that Stephenson would further develop in his later work.[4] The Big U went out of print until 2001, when Stephenson allowed it to be republished after realizing that this book that he considered inferior to his others was being sold at inflated prices for used copies because of its scarcity and collectors’ value.[citation needed]

Stephenson’s breakthrough came in 1992 with Snow Crash,[5] a comic [6] novel in the late cyberpunk or post-cyberpunk tradition fusing memetics, computer viruses, and other high-tech themes with Sumerian mythology, along with a sociological extrapolation of laissez-faire capitalism and collectivism. Snow Crash can be considered to be the first expression of Stephenson’s mature style. Stephenson at this time would later be described by Mike Godwin as “a slight, unassuming grad-student type whose soft-spoken demeanor gave no obvious indication that he had written the manic apotheosis of cyberpunk science fiction.”[7] In 1994, Stephenson joined with his uncle, J. Frederick George, to publish a political thriller, Interface, under the pen name “Stephen Bury”;[8] they followed this in 1996 with The Cobweb.

Stephenson’s next solo novel, published in 1995, was The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, which introduced many of today’s real world technological discoveries. Seen back then as futuristic, Stephenson’s novel has broad range universal self-learning nanotechnology, dynabooks, extensive modern technologies, robotics, cybernetics and cyber cities. Weapons implanted in characters’ skulls, near limitless replicators for everything from mattresses to foods, smartpaper, air and blood-sanitizing nanobots, set in a grim future world of limited resources populated by hard edged survivalists, an amalgamation hero is accidentally conceptualized by a few powerful and wealthy creatives, programmers and hackers.

This was followed by Cryptonomicon in 1999, a novel concerned with concepts ranging from computing and Alan Turing‘s research into codebreaking and cryptography during the Second World War at Bletchley Park, to a modern attempt to set up a data haven. It has subsequently been reissued in three separate volumes in some countries, including in French and Spanish translations. In 2013, Cryptonomicon won thePrometheus Hall of Fame Award.

The Baroque Cycle, Stephenson’s next novel, is a series of long historical novels set in the 17th and 18th centuries, and is in some respects a prequel to Cryptonomicon. It was originally published in three volumes of two or three books each – Quicksilver (2003), The Confusion (2004) and The System of the World (2004) – but was subsequently republished as eight separate books: Quicksilver, King of the Vagabonds, Odalisque,Bonanza, Juncto, Solomon’s Gold, Currency, and System of the World. (The titles and exact breakdown varies in different markets.) The System of the World won the Prometheus Award in 2005.

Following this, Stephenson published a novel titled Anathem (2008), a very long and detailed work, perhaps best described as speculative fiction. It is set in an Earthlike world (perhaps in an alternative reality), deals with metaphysics, and refers heavily to Ancient Greek philosophy, while at the same time being a complex commentary on the insubstantiality of today’s society.

In May 2010, the Subutai Corporation, of which Stephenson was named chairman, announced the production of an experimental multimedia fiction project called The Mongoliad, which centered around a narrative written by Stephenson and other speculative fiction authors.[9][10]

REAMDE, a novel, was released on September 20, 2011.[11] The title is a play on the common filename README. This thriller, set in the present, centers around a group of MMORPG developers caught in the middle of Chinese cyber-criminals, Islamic terrorists, and Russian mafia.[12]

On August 7, 2012, Stephenson released a collection of essays and other previously published fiction entitled Some Remarks : Essays and Other Writing.[13] This collection also includes a new essay and a short story created specifically for this volume.

In 2012 Stephenson launched a Kickstarter campaign for CLANG, a realistic swordfighting fantasy game. The game uses motion control to provide an immersive experience. The game will contain a distinctive world and plotline. The campaign’s funding goal of $500,000 was reached by the target date of July 9, 2012 on Kickstarter, but funding options remained open and were still taking contributions to the project on their official site.[14] The project ran out of money in September 2013.[15] This, and the circumstances around it, has angered some backers.[16] There has even been talk, among the backers, of a potential class action lawsuit.[17] The project to develop the game ended in September 2014 without the game being completed. Stephenson took part of the responsibility for the project’s failure, stating that “I probably focused too much on historical accuracy and not enough on making it sufficiently fun to attract additional investment”.[18]

In late 2013, Stephenson claimed to be working on a multi-volume work, historical novels that would “have a lot to do with scientific and technological themes and how those interact with the characters and civilisation during a particular span of history”. He expected the first two volumes to be released in mid-to-late 2014.[19] However, at about the same time, he shifted his attention to a science fiction novel, Seveneves, which was completed about a year later and will be published in May of 2015.[20]

In 2014, Stephenson was hired as Chief Futurist[21] by the Florida-based company Magic Leap. Magic Leap claims to be developing a revolutionary form of augmented reality, not too different from technologies Stephenson previously has described in his science fiction books.

Non-fiction

The science fiction approach doesn’t mean it’s always about the future;
it’s an awareness that this is different.

– Neal Stephenson, September 1999[22]

Stephenson has also written non-fiction. In The Beginning Was The Command Line, an essay on operating systems including the histories of and relationships between DOS, Windows, Linux, and BeOS from both cultural and technical viewpoints and focusing especially on the development of the Graphical User Interface, was published in book form in 2000.[5] Various other essays have been published in magazines such as Wired.

With the 2003 publication of Quicksilver, Applied Minds debuted The Metaweb, an online wiki annotating the ideas and historical period explored in the novel. The project was influenced by the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, and its content included annotations from Stephenson himself.[23]

Style

In his earlier novels Stephenson deals heavily in pop culture-laden metaphors and imagery and in quick, hip dialogue, as well as in extended narrative monologues. The tone of his books is generally more irreverent and less serious than that of previous cyberpunk novels, notably those of William Gibson.

Stephenson at the Starship Century Symposium at UCSD in 2013

Stephenson’s books tend to have elaborate, inventive plots drawing on numerous technological and sociological ideas at the same time. This distinguishes him from other mainstream science fiction authors who tend to focus on a few technological or social changes in isolation from others. The discursive nature of his writing, together with significant plot and character complexity and an abundance of detail suggests a baroque writing style, which Stephenson brought fully to bear in the three-volume Baroque Cycle.[24] His book The Diamond Age follows a simpler plot but features “neo-Victorian” characters and employs Victorian-era literary conceits. In keeping with the baroque style, Stephenson’s books have become longer as he has gained recognition. For example, the paperback editions of Cryptonomicon are over eleven hundred pages long[25]with the novel containing various digressions, including a lengthy erotic story about antique furniture and stockings.

Works

Stephenson at the National Book Festivalin 2004

Novels

Short fiction

Other fiction projects

  • Project Hieroglyph, founded in 2011, administered by Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination since 2012. Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future, ed. Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer, which includes contributions by Stephenson, was published by William Morrow in September, 2014.

Non-fiction

References

  1. Jump up^ Fisher, Lawrence M. (April 17, 1994). “SOUND BYTES; Orwell – Class of 1994”. The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved December 13, 2010.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Stephenson, Neal. “Biography”. Neal Stephenson’s Site (MobileMe). Archived from the original on June 28, 2012. Retrieved August 7, 2010.
  3. Jump up^ “Neal Stephenson – Biography”. ElectricInca.com. Retrieved August 7, 2010. He began his higher education as a physics major, then switched to geography when it appeared that this would enable him to scam more free time on his university’s mainframe computer.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b c Booker, M Keith; Thomas, Anne-Marie, eds. (2009). “Neal Stephenson (1959–)”. The Science Fiction Handbook. Chichester, UK ; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 173. ISBN 1-4051-6205-8. OCLC 263498124.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b c Grassian, Daniel (2003). “From modernists to Gen Xers”. Hybrid fictions: American fiction and Generation X. Jefferson: McFarland & Co. pp. 29–30. ISBN 978-0-7864-1632-5. OCLC 52565833.
  6. Jump up^ Westfahl, Gary (2005). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Vol. 3. Greenwood Publishing. p. 1235. ISBN 0-313-32953-2. Retrieved 2009-12-05.
  7. Jump up^ Godwin, Mike (February 2005). “Neal Stephenson’s Past, Present, and Future”. Reason (Reason Foundation). Retrieved December 13, 2010.
  8. Jump up^ “Neal Stephenson: Cryptomancer”. Locus Online. August 1, 1999. Retrieved August 7, 2010. …a thriller written in collaboration with his uncle, George Jewsbury, under pseudonym Stephen Bury…
  9. Jump up^ Eaton, Kit (May 26, 2010). “The Mongoliad App: Neal Stephenson’s Novel of the Future?”. Fast Company. Retrieved July 4, 2010.
  10. Jump up^ “Subutai Corporation – Team”. subutai.mn (Subutai Corporation). Retrieved August 7, 2010. Neal Stephenson, Chairman
  11. Jump up^ Anders, Charlie Jane (July 14, 2009). “Neal Stephenson Gets Half A Million Dollars, But Did He Have To Switch Genres To Get It?”. io9. Gawker Media. Retrieved August 7, 2010.
  12. Jump up^ “reamdeDescription”.
  13. Jump up^ Upcoming4.me. “New Neal Stephenson book Some Remarks announced!”. Upcoming4.me. RetrievedJune 26, 2012.
  14. Jump up^ Twitter / subutaicorp: @LordBronco We’re still taking. Twitter.com. Retrieved on 2014-01-14.
  15. Jump up^ Famous Kickstarter Turns Into Complete Disaster. Kotaku.com. Retrieved on 2014-01-14.
  16. Jump up^ THUD: Development Of Neal Stephenson’s CLANG Halted. Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved on 2014-01-14.
  17. Jump up^ Neal Stephenson Says His Dream Of Making A Video Game Isn’t Dead | Kotaku Australia. Kotaku.com.au. Retrieved on 2014-01-14.
  18. Jump up^ Stephenson, Neal (19 September 2014). “Final Update”. CLANG by Subutai Corporation. Kickstarter. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  19. Jump up^ Kelion, Leo. (2013-09-17) BBC News – Neal Stephenson on tall towers and NSA cyber-spies. Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved on 2014-01-14.
  20. Jump up^ http://nealstephenson.com/seveneaves.html
  21. Jump up^ http://www.magicleap.com/press/press_release5.pdf
  22. Jump up^ Catherine, Asaro (September 1999). “A Conversation With Neal Stephenson”. SF Site. RetrievedOctober 6, 2010.
  23. Jump up^ McClellan, Jim (November 4, 2004). “Neal Stephenson – the interview”. The Guardian (Guardian Media Group). Retrieved December 13, 2010.
  24. Jump up^ Giuffo, John (October 1, 2004). “Book Capsule Review: The System of the World”. Entertainment Weekly. Time Warner. Retrieved September 22, 2008.
  25. Jump up^ ex: Stephenson, Neal (1999). Cryptonomicon. Avon Books. pp. 1152 p. ISBN 978-0-06-051280-4.
  26. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h Kelly, Mark R. “The Locus Index to SF Awards: Index of Literary Nominees”. Locusmag.com(Locus Publications). Retrieved January 18, 2011.
  27. Jump up^ William Morrow. Harpercollinscatalogs.com. Retrieved on 2014-01-14.
  28. Jump up^ [1]. Nealstephenson.com. Retrieved on 2015-02-10.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Neal Stephenson.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Neal Stephenson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson

 

Interface (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interface
First edition cover

First edition cover
credited to Stephen Bury
Author Neal Stephenson and George Jewsbury
Cover artist Bruce Jensen
Country United States
Language English
Genre Thriller, Novel
Publisher Bantam
Publication date
 1 April 1994
Media type Print (Paperback)
ISBN ISBN 0-553-37230-0 (first edition, paperback)
OCLC 28148075
813/.54 20
LC Class PS3552.U788 I58 1994

Interface is a 1994 novel by Neal Stephenson and George Jewsbury. It was originally sold with the author pseudonym of Stephen Bury, then reissued as being by Bury and J. Frederick George ,[1] and most recently as being by Stephenson and George.

Interface is a near-future thriller, set in 1996, in which a shadowy coalition bent on controlling the world economy attempts to manipulate a candidate for president of the United States through the use of a computer bio-chip implanted in his brain.

In 2007, it was described by writer Cory Doctorow as an “underappreciated masterpiece”.[2]

Plot summary

The novel opens with the governor of Illinois, William Cozzano, suffering a stroke, and in a separate subplot, a trailer park inhabitant, unemployed African-American, Eleanor Richmond, discovering her husband dead after having committed suicide in their repossessed former home.

As events progress, an underground business coalition, the Network, is arranging for Cozzano to have a biochip implanted and for him to run for President of the United States. The Network is made up of a number of large fictional companies, with parallels in real business entities.

Eleanor Richmond, after publicly attacking a local cable TV Public-access television talk show personality who was running for Senate, has since found herself working in the offices of a Republican Colorado senator, and after an event where she accused the citizens of Colorado of being welfare queens, finds herself in the public eye as one of the candidates for Cozzano’s running mate.

The Network’s ability to perceive public opinion, skewed on the night of the vice presidential debate by a twist of fate, makes them select Richmond as vice presidential candidate, and a canny act of public relations work rescues Cozzano’s campaign, getting him elected as President.

However, Cozzano gets shot at his inauguration by a psychotic former factory worker who has somehow figured out the Network’s plans almost entirely, killing him almost instantly. Richmond ends up as the first black and first female President of the United States.

Characters in “Interface”

  • Eleanor Richmond – unemployed African-American woman, protagonist
  • William Cozzano – governor of Illinois
  • Mary Catherine Cozzano – daughter of governor, neurologist
  • Cy Ogle – campaign manager
  • Dr. Radhakrishnan – neurosurgeon

References

  1. Jump up^ Stephenson, Neal; George, J. Frederick (2005) [1994]. Interface. Bantam Spectra. ISBN 9780553383430.
  2. Jump up^ Interface: Neal Stephenson’s underappreciated masterpiece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_(novel)

 

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Kevin Guilfoile — The Thousand — Videos

Posted on February 13, 2015. Filed under: American History, Blogroll, Books, College, Communications, Corruption, Education, Fiction, history, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, media, Medicine, Money, Non-Fiction, People, Philosophy, Photos, Politics, Strategy, Video, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , |

kevin gThousandGuilfoile

Kevin Guilfoile, author of The Thousand and Cast of Shadows, on The Interview Show

The Inside Corner – Kevin Guilfoile

Synopsis | The Thousand By Kevin Guilfoile

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Mark Allpert — Final Theory

Posted on February 4, 2015. Filed under: Blogroll, Books, Chemistry, Communications, Culture, Energy, Fiction, government, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, Literature, Nuclear, People, Philosophy, Physics, Politics, Raves, Science, Security, Terrorism, Video, War, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , |

TR_Mark_Alpertfinal theoryalpert

Mark Alpert: Final Theory

Mark Alpert Discusses New Book: Final Theory

The Final Theory: Adventure, Mystery, and Einstein

Author Mark Alpert gives us a sneak peek at the sequel to FINAL THEORY

Mark Alpert recommends his last great read

What’s At the Nucleus of THE OMEGA THEORY?

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Gardner Mckay — Toyer — Videos

Posted on February 3, 2015. Filed under: American History, Art, Art, Blogroll, Books, College, Communications, Culture, Education, Entertainment, Fiction, Freedom, Friends, history, Language, liberty, Life, Links, Literature, media, Movies, People, Philosophy, Photos, Radio, Raves, Television, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

copy-Gardner_pix

Gardner Mckay

VANITY FAIR, DOMINICK DUNNE – “GARDNER MCKAY’S BRILLIANTLY INTRICATE NOVEL,TOYER, IS FRIGHTENING, FASCINATING, AND WONDERFULLY WELL WRITTEN.

THERE WERE TIMES READING IT WHEN I HAD TO PUT IT DOWN TO COLLECT MYSELF BEFORE PICKING IT UP AGAIN.”

JIMMY BUFFETT – “THE MOST EFFECTIVE, EXCITING, BIZARRE TALE POSSIBLE. IN TOYER,MCKAY HAS GIVEN US AN ARRAY OF VICTIMS WHO FALL INTO THE VENUS FLYTRAP OF A VILLAIN AS CUNNING AS RICHARD III AND A MANIACAL AS HANNIBAL LECTER.”

JAMES CAMERON – “TOYER IS A NOVEL WHERE LOS ANGELES STARS AS ITSELF, THE CITY OF MASKS, WHERE RELATIONSHIPS PEEL THE ONION OF DARK REVELATION, AS TWO ADVERSARIES COUPLE IN A SEDUCTIVE DEATH-LOCK. GARDNER MCKAY HAS WOVEN A CHILLING AND DISTURBING DESCENT INTO THE CATACOMBS OF THE MIND.”

LEON BING – “WHOEVER PICKS UP GARDNER MCKAY’S NOVEL, TOYER, WILL KNOW, EARLY ON, THAT A MASTER HAS LAID HANDS ON THEM. THIS IS A BOOK OF SUCH SHEER, BRUTAL BRILLIANCE THAT THE READER OFTEN FEELS LIKE A PASSENGER TRAPPED ON A RUNAWAY TRAIN RACKETING ALONG A DOWNHILL TRACK.

MR. MCKAY IS A SUPERBLY ACCOMPLISHED WRITER; NOT SINCE HANNIBAL LECTER HAS THERE BEEN A LITERARY CHARACTER OF SUCH SILKEN AND ABSOLUTE MENACE AS TOYER.” –

THE NEW YORK TIMES – ”Connoisseurs – will appreciate the gorgeous imagery of McKay’s novel – the bizarre beauty of his writing.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES – “Anyone should make a beeline for  McKay’s novel.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICAL – “FIRST RATE.”

HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN, JOHN BERGER – “Almost impossible to put down. Read it once for the story. Read it at least twice more for the writing.”

LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE – BOOK PICK OF THE MONTH – ”Reminiscent of the best of classical L.A.noir – chilling.”

BOSTON GLOBE – “As bad as this title is as good as this book is. Slick, sensitive, brilliant.”

HONOLULU ADVERTISER, WANDA ADAMS – “ Insightful writing, unexpected plot, arresting asides, delicious evocations, and its unique take on a very much tried formula. [ I will ] read it again.”

HONOLULU WEEKLY, STUART COLEMAN – “ I couldn’t put it down.”

REDBOOK  MAGAZINE – PICK OF THE MONTH

JANE MAGAZINE –    “ * * * * *  –  Perfect.”

HONOLULU ADVERTISER  – # 1 BEST SELLER

WILLIAM SPEAR  (JUNEAU) – “A classy brain- clearing thriller.”

KATE JACKSON – “A stunning success. A wonderful book – brilliantly twisted.”

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER – “A true psychological thriller that will leave the reader mentally drained.”

mckay_daughtermckay4Gardner5mckaygardner mckay

Gardner McKay – Actor, Writer, Icon

Adventures in Paradise a Tribute to Gardner Mckay in photos

TOYER – Annabel & Andrew scene

“Toyer” by Gardner McKay

“Toyer” by Gardner McKay. Directed by Jon Gonzalez. Here’s a short play I directed. Starring Laya Hernandez and Zebastian Duchene.

Gardner McKay

Adventures in Paradise – Isle of Eden

An extract of the episode “Isle of Eden” of the “Adventures of Paradise” TV series, broadcasted on ABC TV in the USA on February 22nd 1960. Starring Gardner McKay, as Adam Troy, captain of the “Tiki, and as guest stars Yvonne De Carlo and Hugo Haas.

Sea Marks by Gardner McKay at The Irish Repertory Theatre

 

Adventures In Paradise Somewhere South of Suva part 2 Gardner Mckay 1960

Biography

copy-Gardner_pix.jpgGeorge Cadogan Gardner McKay was born in Manhattan, New York City, his early years were spent in France, Connecticut and Kentucky. He attended Cornell University where he edited the humor magazine, wrote a film review column for the paper, was briefly president of his class and rowed on their crew.

At age fifteen, he published his first story. His novel Toyer  won critical acclaim upon its release in 1998 and is currently in pre-production for a major motion film.

He has been awarded several prizes for his writing:- The Drama Critics Award for playwriting, The Sydney Carrington Prize. He won three National Endowment for the Arts grants for playwriting. Five of his play have been published by Samuel French Publishing Company, New York, Los Angeles, London: Sea Marks, Masters of the Sea, Toyer, Me, In Order of Appearance. His plays have been, and continue to be, produced in every state in the union and internationally.

Sea Marks won the National Regional Theatre Award in Canada. The Drama Critics Circle Award, best play of the year. And has been produced in NYC in six Off-Broadway productions; the Players Theatre (“Best Off- Broadway Play, Walter Kerr, New York Times) the Manhattan Theatre Club, and other theatres. It has been presented at the Eisenhower Theatre, The Kennedy Center in Washington D. C. The Edinburgh Festival and The Pitlochry Festival, Scotland. It has also been broadcast on B.B.C. Radio Theatre, London.

McKay’s play Toyer was first staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. – starring  Kathleen Turner and Brad Davis, directed by, Tony Richardson. It has also  been produced by Michael White in England – starring Rupert Graves,  and later in  London’s West End.

Other plays of his – in random order- of various lengths that have been produced are: – Untold Damage (PBS) Written and directed by Mr. McKay for PBS starring Richard Dreyfuss, Geraldine Fitzgerald, tracy Swope, Josh Bryant. It was cited as the best television production by the Television Theatre. Narcissa-Narcissus, Tapes, The Girl Next  Door is Screaming, The Suit, The Visitor, Meeting, Silver Eyes, The Honeyman, Yeats/Millay, Becker, The People we Kill, Alligators Have no Choice.

He was Drama critic and Drama editor for the Los Angeles Herald Tribune. During the time he was with the Herald he invented a method of review called the “Triple Review” three brief reviews of the same play by three writers. The lone newspaper’s  “Voice of the Critic” was hushed for these reviews and, instead, the review became an argument of the play’s worth on the forum of its pages.

He has taught playwriting at U.C.L.A at his Playwriting Roundtable. Later he taught playwriting and screenwriting at University of Southern California, Juneau Alaska, and the University of Hawaii.

During the ’70 and ‘80s he started a small professional group called the Playwrights’ Exchange. He personally constructed a 50-seat theatre off the kitchen of his L.A. house and every Tuesday playwrights gathered to see new work being read in whole or in fragments by professional actors. The theatre was named The Free Theatre, mainly because no money changed hands; emblematic of playwriting.

From 1995 – until his death in November 2001,  Gardner wrote and recorded stories for his weekly radio show “Stories on the Wind” which aired each Sunday.

McKay has also been a  sculptor ( several of his works are in the Museum of Modern Art, NYC and the Whitney Museum.) He has been a professional skipper, photographer, actor (Adventures in Paradise, Boots and Saddles), and has raised African lions.

http://gardnermckay.net/biography

 

Gardner McKay

George Cadogan Gardner McKay (June 10, 1932 – November 21, 2001) was an American actor, artist, and author.

Biography

Born in New York City, McKay was the great-grandson[1] of the shipbuilder Donald McKay. He attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York for two years,[2] where he majored in art. He became a Hollywood heartthrob in the 1950s and 1960s. He landed the lead role in Adventures in Paradise, based loosely on the writings of James Michener. His character, Adam Troy, is a Korean War veteran who purchased the two-masted 82-foot (25 m) schooner Tiki III, and sailed the South Pacific.

McKay was under contract to MGM when he was spotted by Dominick Dunne, then a television producer for Twentieth Century Fox, who was searching for an actor to star in his planned Adventures in Paradise. Dunne put his business card on the table and said, “If you’re interested in discussing a television series, call me.” McKay competed in screen tests with nine other candidates, and won it because of his good looks and ability to sail. An accomplished sailor, he had made eight Atlantic crossings by the age of seventeen. Although previously unknown to the public, McKay appeared on the July 6, 1959, cover of Life Magazine just two months before the series premiered.

In the 1957–1958 season, McKay played United States Army Lieutenant Dan Kelly in the 38-episode syndicatedwestern series, Boots and Saddles, with co-stars Jack Pickard and Patrick McVey.[3] Thereafter, he was cast in the episode “Showdown” of the NBC western, Jefferson Drum, with Jeff Richards.

McKay’s final film was the 1968 I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew written and directed by Richard L. Bare.

McKay left Hollywood to pursue his interest in photography, sculpture, and writing. He turned down the opportunity to star opposite Marilyn Monroe in Something’s Got to Give, a film which was never completed. He exhibited his sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, besides holding individual exhibitions. His lifeboat rescue photographs of the Andrea Doria were published internationally. McKay wrote many plays and novels, and was a literary critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner between 1977 and 1982. He taught writing classes at the University of California at Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of Alaska, and the University of Hawaii. In 2014 his play Sea Marks was produced Off-Broadway at the Irish Repertory Theatre.

McKay’s awards included three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for playwriting, the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, and Sidney Carrington Prize. He was a winner in Canadian Regional Drama Festival, and runner-up in the Hemingway Short Story Contest.

Last years

McKay settled in Hawaii, where he died from prostate cancer in 2001, at the age of sixty-nine. He was survived by his wife, Madeleine Madigan, a painter, and two children.

Portal icon Biography portal
Portal icon New York City portal
Portal icon New York portal
Portal icon Los Angeles portal
Portal icon California portal
Portal icon Hawaii portal
Portal icon Film portal
Portal icon Television portal

References

  1. Jump up^ Video on YouTube
  2. Jump up^ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/24/arts/gardner-mckay-69-tv-heartthrob-who-turned-to-writing.html
  3. Jump up^ “Boots and Saddles“. Classic TV Archivers. Retrieved September 12, 2009.

External links

Gardner McKay at the Internet Movie Database

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardner_McKay

 

Brian De Palma Toys With Toyer Again

By Claude Brodesser-Akner

 

Six years ago, reports surfaced that Brian De Palma would next be directing the diabolical Gardner McKay novel and stage play Toyer, which follows a “serial lunatic.” The Toyer doesn’t murder or rape his beautiful female victims, he “toys” with them, torturing them psychologically, then puttting them into a medically induced coma. (Sort of like what De Palma did to audiences in Snake Eyes … We kid, Brian!)

Anyway, without a capital crime to prosecute, the police and D.A. can only charge the Toyer with “mayhem,” and as they’re overwhelmed with hundreds of uncleared murder cases, the Toyer case becomes a lower priority. So a female neurologist who treats Toyer’s victims teams up with a newspaper editor to draw him out and bring him to justice.

This time, we’re told, Toyer really is happening, but as an indie financed via producers Tarak Ben Ammar, (who most famously produced Franco Zefferilli’s La Traviata) and the L.A.-based Scott Steindorff. Steindorff has brought heavyweight literature like Philip Roth’s The Human Stain and Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera to the screen, and tells Vulture that the film will be shooting in Venice, Italy, late this fall and into the early winter.

That’s a switch from the Gardner version, which is set in L.A., but should be far creepier: De Palma plans to set the mayhem against Venice’s famous Carnevale di Venezia, for which elaborate masks disguising one’s identity are traditionally worn on the street from St. Stephen’s Day (the day after Christmas) until the start of the Venitian Carnival (two weeks before Ash Wednesday). Steindorff says shooting during the actual Carnival (during February and March) would be logistically impossible. They plan to re-create their own Carnival on location.

“It has all the elements of suspense that Brian does so well in films likeBlow Out and Carrie,” Steindorff says, adding, “And by that I mean, it’s really frickin’ scary: I read the script on a plane, and I was still terrified.”

http://www.vulture.com/2010/08/vulture_exclusive_writer-direc.html

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Richard A. Clarke — Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror — Videos

Posted on January 27, 2015. Filed under: American History, Ammunition, Babies, Bomb, Book, Books, Business, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), College, Communications, Computers, Constitution, Corruption, Dirty Bomb, Documentary, Drones, Economics, Education, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Fiction, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Genocide, government, government spending, history, Islam, Language, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, media, Missiles, National Security Agency (NSA_, Non-Fiction, Nuclear, People, Philosophy, Photos, Pistols, Politics, Press, Rants, Raves, Rifles, Security, Talk Radio, Technology, Terrorism, Video, War, Wealth, Weapons, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Welfare, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Richard-Clarkerichard-a-clarke-against-all-enemies-inside-americas-war-on-terror

Richard-A-Clarke

Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, Apologizes for 9/11

Ex-Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Committed War Crimes

 

Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror 1/2

Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror 2/2

Richard Clarke on Foreign Oil, Saudi Arabia, and Iran – The Scorpion’s Gate (2005)

Richard A. Clarke

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard A. Clarke
Richard clarke.jpg

Clarke in October 2007
Born Richard Alan Clarke
October 27, 1950 (age 64)
Dorchester, Massachusetts, U.S.
Nationality American
Citizenship United States
Education Master’s Degree from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Alma mater University of Pennsylvania
Occupation Counter-terrorism expert/analyst
Author
Notable work(s) Against All EnemiesThe Scorpion’s Gate,Breakpoint
Political party
 Democratic
Website
http://www.richardaclarke.net/

Richard Alan Clarke[1] (born October 27, 1950) is the former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism for the United States.

Clarke worked for the State Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.[2] In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to chair the Counter-terrorism Security Group and to a seat on the United States National Security Council. President Bill Clinton retained Clarke and in 1998 promoted him to be the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism, the chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council. Under President George W. Bush, Clarke initially continued in the same position, but the position was no longer given cabinet-level access. He later became the Special Advisor to the President on cybersecurity. Clarke left the Bush administration in 2003.

Clarke came to widespread public attention for his role as counter-terrorism czar in the Clinton and Bush administrations in March 2004, when he appeared on the 60 Minutes television news magazine, released his memoir about his service in government, Against All Enemies, and testified before the 9/11 Commission. In all three instances, Clarke was sharply critical of the Bush administration’s attitude toward counter-terrorism before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and of the decision to go to war with Iraq.

Background

Richard Clarke was born in 1950, the son of a Boston chocolate factory worker and a nurse.[3] He studied at the Boston Latin School (graduated in 1968), received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 where he was selected to serve in the Sphinx Senior Society.[4] After working for the Department of Defense as an analyst on European security issues, Clarke earned a master’s degree in management in 1978 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[5]

Government career

In 1973, he began work in the federal government as a management intern[6] in the U.S. Department of Defense. Beginning in 1985, Clarke served in the Reagan administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence. During the Presidential administration of George H.W. Bush, as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, he coordinated diplomatic efforts to support the 1990-1991 Gulf War and the subsequent security arrangements. During the Clinton administration, Clarke became the counter-terrorism coordinator for the National Security Council. He remained counter-terrorism coordinator during the first year of the George W. Bush administration, and later was the Special Advisor to the President on cybersecurity and cyberterrorism. He resigned from the Bush administration in 2003.

Clarke’s positions inside the government have included:

Clinton administration

Clarke advised Madeleine Albright during the Genocide in Rwanda, to request the UN to withdraw all UN troops from Rwanda. She refused, but permitted Gen. Dallaire to keep a few hundred troops who managed to save thousands from the genocide. Later Clarke told Samantha Power “It wasn’t in American’s national interest. If we had to do the same thing today and I was advising the President, I would advise the same thing.” He directed the authoring of PDD-25[7] which outlined a reduced military and economic role for the United States in Rwanda as well as future peacekeeping operations.

Islamists took control in Sudan in a 1989 coup d’état and the United States adopted a policy of disengagement with the authoritarian regime throughout the 1990s. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, however, some critics charged that the U.S. should have moderated its policy toward Sudan earlier, since the influence of Islamists there waned in the second half of 1990s and Sudanese officials began to indicate an interest in accommodating U.S. concerns with respect to 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, who had been living in Sudan until he was expelled in May 1996. Timothy M. Carney, U.S. ambassador to Sudan between September 1995 and November 1997, co-authored an op-ed in 2002 claiming that in 1997 Sudan offered to turn over its intelligence on bin Laden but that Susan Rice, as NSC Africa specialist, together with the then NSC terrorism specialist Richard A. Clarke, successfully lobbied for continuing to bar U.S. officials, including the CIA and FBI, from engaging with the Khartoum government.[8] Similar allegations (that Susan Rice joined others in missing an opportunity to cooperate with Sudan on counterterrorism) were made by Vanity Fair contributing editor David Rose[9] and Richard Miniter, author of Losing Bin Laden.[10]

Clarke was also involved in investigating Ramzi Yousef, one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who traveled to the United States on an Iraqi passport. Yousef is the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a senior al-Qaeda member. Many in the Clinton administration and the intelligence community believed this was evidence linking al-Qaeda’s activities and the government of Iraq.

In February 1999 Clarke wrote the Deputy National Security Advisor that one reliable source reported Iraqi officials had met with Bin Ladin and may have offered him asylum. Therefore, Clarke advised against surveillance flights to track bin Laden in Afghanistan: Anticipating an attack, “old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad”, where he would be impossible to find.[11] Clarke also made statements that year to the press linking “Iraqi nerve gas experts” and al-Qaeda to an alleged joint-chemical-weapons-development effort at the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.[12]

Michael Scheuer is the former chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA. Matthew Continetti writes: “Scheuer believes that Clarke’s risk aversion and politicking negatively impacted the hunt for bin Laden prior to September 11, 2001. Scheuer stated that his unit, codename ‘Alec,’ had provided information that could have led to the capture and or killing of Osama bin Laden on ten different occasions during the Clinton administration, only to have his recommendations for action turned down by senior intelligence officials, including Clarke.”[13]

Bush administration

Clarke and his communications with the Bush administration regarding bin Laden and associated terrorist plots targeting the United States were mentioned frequently in Condoleezza Rice‘s public interview by the 9/11 investigatory commission on April 8, 2004. Of particular significance was a memo[14] from January 25, 2001, that Clarke had authored and sent to Condoleezza Rice. Along with making an urgent request for a meeting of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee to discuss the growing al-Qaeda threat in the greater Middle East, the memo also suggests strategies for combating al-Qaeda that might be adopted by the new Bush administration.[15]

In his memoir, “Against All Enemies”, Clarke wrote that Condoleezza Rice made a decision that the position of National Coordinator for Counterterrorism should be downgraded. By demoting the office, the Administration sent a signal through the national security bureaucracy about the salience they assigned to terrorism. No longer would Clarke’s memos go to the President; instead they had to pass through a chain of command of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley, who bounced every one of them back.

Within a week of the inauguration, I wrote to Rice and Hadley asking ‘urgently’ for a Principals, or Cabinet-level, meeting to review the imminent Al-Qaeda threat. Rice told me that the Principals Committee, which had been the first venue for terrorism policy discussions in the Clinton administration, would not address the issue until it had been ‘framed’ by the Deputies.[16]

At the first Deputies Committee meeting on Terrorism held in April 2001, Clarke strongly suggested that the U.S. put pressure on both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda by arming the Northern Alliance and other groups in Afghanistan. Simultaneously, that they target bin Laden and his leadership by reinitiating flights of the MQ-1 Predators. To which Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz responded, “Well, I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden.” Clarke replied that he was talking about bin Laden and his network because it posed “an immediate and serious threat to the United States.” According to Clarke, Wolfowitz turned to him and said, “You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages does not mean they don’t exist.”[16]

Clarke wrote in Against All Enemies that in the summer of 2001, the intelligence community was convinced of an imminent attack by al Qaeda, but could not get the attention of the highest levels of the Bush administration, most famously writing that Director of theCentral Intelligence Agency George Tenet was running around with his “hair on fire”.[16]

At a July 5, 2001, White House gathering of the FAA, the Coast Guard, the FBI, Secret Service and INS, Clarke stated that “something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon.”

9/11 Commission

On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings.[17] At the outset of his testimony Clarke offered an apology to the families of 9/11 victims and an acknowledgment that the government had failed: “I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11…To the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, to them who are here in this room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.”[17]

Many of the events Clarke recounted during the hearings were also published in his memoir. Clarke charged that before and during the 9/11 crisis, many in the Administration were distracted from efforts against Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organization by a pre-occupation with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Clarke had written that on September 12, 2001, President Bush pulled him and a couple of aides aside and “testily” asked him to try to find evidence that Saddam was connected to the terrorist attacks. In response he wrote a report stating there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement and got it signed by all relevant agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA. The paper was quickly returned by a deputy with a note saying “Please update and resubmit.”[18] After initially denying that such a meeting between the President and Clarke took place, the White House later reversed its denial when others present backed Clarke’s version of the events.[19][20]

Criticism

 This section’s tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia’s guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2013)

Before and after Clarke appeared before the 9/11 Commission, some critics tried to attack his credibility, launching a full-scale offensive against him: impugning his personal motives, claiming he was a disappointed job-hunter, that he sought publicity, and that he was a political partisan. They charged that he exaggerated perceived failures in the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies while exculpating the former Clinton administration from its perceived shortcomings.[21]

According to some reports, the White House tried to discredit Clarke in a move described as “shooting the messenger.”[22] New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman was more blunt, calling the attacks on Clarke “a campaign of character assassination.”[23]

Some Republicans inside and outside the Bush administration questioned both Clarke’s testimony and his tenure during the hearings. Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist took to the Senate floor to make a speech alleging Clarke told “two entirely different stories under oath”, pointing to congressional hearing testimony Clarke gave in 2002 and his 9/11 Commission testimony. Frist later speculated to reporters Clarke was trading on his former service as a government insider with access to the nation’s most valuable intelligence to sell a book.[24]

During Clarke’s earlier testimony, he stated that Bill Clinton did not have a comprehensive plan on dealing with terrorism. During later testimony, he stated that President Clinton did have a comprehensive plan on dealing with terrorism. As summarized by the Toledo Blade, “In his August 2002 briefing, Mr. Clarke told reporters (1) that the Clinton administration had no overall plan on al-Qaeda to pass on to the Bush Administration; (2) that just days after his inauguration, Mr. Bush said he wanted a new, more comprehensive anti-terror strategy; (3) that Mr. Bush ordered implementation of anti-terror measures that had been kicking around since 1998, and (4) that before Sept. 11, Mr. Bush had increased fivefold the funding for CIA covert action programs against al-Qaeda. … It’s reasonable enough to argue that Mr. Bush could have done more to guard against terror, though it isn’t clear what. What is incredible is to argue – as Mr. Clarke did before the 9/11 Commission – that President Clinton was more concerned about al-Qaeda than Mr. Bush was.”[25]

Clarke was criticized for his suggestions in 1999 of intelligence indicating a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, despite the fact Clarke and others concluded after investigations by 2001 that no link had been established. In Against All Enemies he writes, “It is certainly possible that Iraqi agents dangled the possibility of asylum in Iraq before bin Laden at some point when everyone knew that the U.S. was pressuring the Taliban to arrest him. If that dangle happened, bin Laden’s accepting asylum clearly did not,” (p. 270). In an interview on March 21, 2004, Clarke claimed that “there’s absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al-Qaeda, ever.”[26] Clarke claimed in his book that this conclusion was understood by the intelligence community at the time of 9/11 and the ensuing months, but top Bush administration officials were pre-occupied with finding a link between Iraq and 9/11 in the months that followed the attack, and thus, Clarke argued, the Iraq war distracted attention and resources from the war in Afghanistan and hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Fox News, allegedly with the Administration’s consent, identified and released a background briefing that Clarke gave in August 2002, at the Administration’s request, to minimize the fallout from a Time magazine story about the President’s failure to take certain actions before 9/11.[27] In that briefing on behalf of the White House, Clarke stated “there was no plan on Al-Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration,” and that after taking office President Bush decided to “add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, fivefold, to go after Al-Qaeda.”[28] At the next day’s hearing, 9/11 Commission member James Thompson challenged Clarke with the 2002 account, and Clarke explained: “I was asked to make that case to the press. I was a special assistant to the President, and I made the case I was asked to make… I was asked to highlight the positive aspects of what the Administration had done and to minimize the negative aspects of what the Administration had done. And as a special assistant to the President, one is frequently asked to do that kind of thing. I’ve done it for several Presidents.”[17]

Another point of attack was Clarke’s role in allowing members of the bin Laden family to fly to Saudi Arabia on September 20, 2001. According to Clarke’s statements to the 9/11 Commission, a request was relayed to Clarke from the Saudi embassy to allow the members of the bin Laden family living in the U.S. to fly home. Clarke testified to the commission that he passed this decision in turn to the FBI via Dale Watson, and that the FBI at length sent its approval of the flight to the Interagency Crisis Management Group.[29]However, FBI spokesman John Iannarelli denied that the FBI had a role in approving the flight: “I can say unequivocally that the FBI had no role in facilitating these flights.”[30]

Clarke has also exchanged criticism with Michael Scheuer, former chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station at the CIA. When asked to respond to Clarke’s claim that Scheuer was “a hothead, a middle manager who really didn’t go to any of the cabinet meetings,” Scheuer returned the criticism as follows: “I certainly agree with the fact that I didn’t go to the cabinet meetings. But I’m certainly also aware that I’m much better informed than Mr. Clarke ever was about the nature of the intelligence that was available against Osama bin Laden and which was consistently denigrated by himself and Mr. Tenet.”[31]

On March 28, 2004, at the height of the controversy during the 9/11 Commission Hearings, Clarke went on NBC’s Sunday morning news show, Meet the Press and was interviewed by journalist Tim Russert. In responding to and rebutting the criticism, Clarke challenged the Bush administration to declassify the whole record, including closed testimony by Bush administration officials before the Commission.[32]

Cyberterrorism and cybersecurity

Clarke, as Special Advisor to the President on Cybersecurity, spent his last year in the Bush administration focusing on cybersecurity and the threat of terrorism against the critical infrastructure of the United States. At a security conference in 2002, after citing statistics that indicate that less than 0.0025 percent of corporate revenue on average is spent on information-technology security, Clarke was famously heard to say, “If you spend more on coffee than on IT security, then you will be hacked. What’s more, you deserve to be hacked.”[33]

In June 2012 Clarke discussed issues of cybersecurity in depth in an interview on The Colbert Report in which he was seemingly misled into thinking that they were discussing cyber-security threats from the Chinese through the use of mobile devices such as iPads. Instead, Stephen Colbert was doing a humorous piece on the threats of Orangutans learning to use iPads. Indeed, when confronted on the issue directly, Clarke himself clarified that he was not discussing non-human primate based cyberterrorism threats. “Orangutans? You mean like apes?” said Clarke, “Are you sh**tin’ me? I’m talking about the Chinese.”[34]

Post government career

Clarke is currently Chairman of Good Harbor Consulting and Good Harbour International, two strategic planning and corporate risk management firms; an on-air consultant for ABC News, and a contributor to the Good Harbor Report, an online community discussing homeland security, defense, and politics. He is an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and a faculty affiliate of its Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.[35] He has also become an author of fiction, publishing his first novel, The Scorpion’s Gate, in 2005, and a second, Breakpoint, in 2007.

Clarke wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post on May 31, 2009 harshly critical of other Bush administration officials, entitled “The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse”.[36] Clarke wrote that he had little sympathy for his fellow officials who seemed to want to use the excuse of being traumatized, and caught unaware by Al-Qaeda‘s attacks on the USA, because their being caught unaware was due to their ignoring clear reports a major attack on U.S. soil was imminent. Clarke particularly singled out former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

In April 2010 Clarke released his book on Cyber War. In April 2012, Clarke wrote a New York Times op-ed addressing cyber attacks. In stemming cyber attacks carried out by foreign governments and foreign hackers, particularly from China, Clarke opined that the U.S. government should be authorized to “create a major program to grab stolen data leaving the country” in a fashion similar to how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security currently searches for child pornography that crosses America’s “virtual borders.” Moreover, he suggested that the US president could authorize agencies to scan Internet traffic outside the US and seize sensitive files stolen from within the United States. Clarke then stated that such a policy would not endanger privacy rights through the institution of a privacy advocate, who could stop abuses or any activity that went beyond halting the theft of important files. The op-ed did not offer evidence that finding and blocking files while they are being transmitted is technically feasible.[37]

In September 2012, Clarke stated that Middle Eastern governments were likely behind hacking incidents against several banks.[38] During the same year, he also endorsed Barack Obama‘s reelection for President of the United States.

Following the 2013 high-speed fatal car crash of journalist Michael Hastings, a vocal critic of the surveillance state and restrictions on the press freedom under the Obama Administration tenure, Clarke was quoted as saying “There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers — including the United States — know how to remotely seize control of a car. So if there were a cyber attack on the car — and I’m not saying there was, I think whoever did it would probably get away with it.”[39]

In 2013, Clarke served on an advisory group for the Obama administration, as it sought to reform NSA spying programs following the revelations of documents released by Edward Snowden.[40] The report mentioned in ‘Recommendation 30’ on page 37, “…that the National Security Council staff should manage an interagency process to review on a regular basis the activities of the US Government regarding attacks, that exploit a previously unknown vulnerability in a computer application.” Clarke told Reuters on 11 April 2014 that the NSA had not known of Heartbleed.[41]

Written works

Main article: Against All Enemies

On March 22, 2004, Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror—What Really Happened (ISBN 0-7432-6024-4), was published. The book was critical of past and present Presidential administrations for the way they handled the war on terrorboth before and after September 11, 2001 but focused much of its criticism on Bush for failing to take sufficient action to protect the country in the elevated-threat period before the September 11, 2001 attacks and for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Clarke feels greatly hampered the war on terror, and was a distraction from the real terrorists.

Affiliation

  • Chairman, Good Harbor Consulting, LLC, a strategic planning and corporate risk management firm.
  • Contributor, Good Harbor Index, an online resource for homeland security, defense and political issues, operated by Good Harbor Consulting, LLC.
  • Faculty Affiliate, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
  • Advisory Board Member, Civitas Group, LLC
  • Cyber Security Consultant, SRA International, Inc.
  • On-air consultant, ABC News.

See also

References

  1. Jump up^ Dobbs, Michael. “An Obscure Chief in U.S. War on Terror”. The Washington Post, April 2, 2000.
  2. Jump up^ “Profile: Richard Clarke”. BBC News. March 22, 2004. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  3. Jump up^ “Richard Clarke Biography”. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Advameg, Inc. Retrieved April 3, 2012.
  4. Jump up^ Senior Society, Sphinx. “Class of 1972”. Sphinx Senior Society. Retrieved April 3, 2012.
  5. Jump up^ Bio.Richard Clarke, “NNDB.com”
  6. Jump up^ Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006, p.206.
  7. Jump up^ “Text of Presidential Decision Directive 25”. Federation of American Scientists. May 6, 1994. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  8. Jump up^ Carney, Timothy; Mansoor Ijaz (June 30, 2002). “Intelligence Failure? Let’s Go Back to Sudan”. The Washington Post. RetrievedDecember 1, 2008. Retrieved from http://www.mafhoum.com/ Jan. 2015.
  9. Jump up^ Rose, David (January 2002). “The Osama Files”. Vanity Fair. Retrieved December 1, 2008.
  10. Jump up^ Belz, Mindy (November 1, 2003). “Clinton did not have the will to respond”. World. Retrieved December 1, 2008.
  11. Jump up^ The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 134.
  12. Jump up^ Vernon Loeb (January 23, 1999). “Embassy Attacks Thwarted, U.S. Says; Official Cites Gains Against Bin Laden; Clinton Seeks $10 Billion To Fight Terrorism”. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  13. Jump up^ Continetti, Matthew (November 22, 2004). “Scheuer v. Clarke”. Weekly Standard. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  14. Jump up^ http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20memo.pdf
  15. Jump up^ “Bush Administration’s First Memo on al-Qaeda Declassified”. Gwu.edu. January 25, 2001. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  16. ^ Jump up to:a b c Richard Clarke: “Against All Enemies, Inside America’s War on Terror” by Free Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster
  17. ^ Jump up to:a b c “Transcript: Wednesday’s 9/11 Commission Hearings”. Washington Post. March 24, 2004. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  18. Jump up^ Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror–What Really Happened (ISBN 0-7432-6024-4)
  19. Jump up^ Dean, John W (April 9, 2004). “Bush’s attack on Richard Clarke”. CNN. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  20. Jump up^ Marshall, Josh (September 11, 2001). “Talking Points Memo” (Press release). Talking Points Memo. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  21. Jump up^ Ratnesar, Romesh (March 25, 2004). “Richard Clarke, at War With Himself”. TIME. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  22. Jump up^ “White House Tries to Discredit Counterterrorism Coordinator”. Common Dreams. March 22, 2004. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  23. Jump up^ Krugman, Paul (March 30, 2004). “Smearing Richard Clarke”. History News Network. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  24. Jump up^ “Talking Points Memo”. Retrieved from Internet Archive Wayback Machine, 20 January 2015.
  25. Jump up^ http://www.toledoblade.com/Opinion/2004/03/27/The-Blame-Bush-approach.html
  26. Jump up^ CBS: Clarke’s Take On Terror. March 19, 2004.
  27. Jump up^ Kaplan, Fred (March 24, 2004). “Richard Clarke KOs the Bushies”. Slate Magazine. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  28. Jump up^ “Transcript: Clarke Praises Bush Team in ’02”. FoxNews.com. March 24, 2004. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  29. Jump up^ “Richard Clarke Testifies Before 9/11 Commission”. CNN Transcripts. March 24, 2004. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  30. Jump up^ Craig Unger: Letter To the Editor NYT March 30, 2005
  31. Jump up^ Leung, Rebecca (November 12, 2004). “Bin Laden Expert Steps Forward, Ex-CIA Agent Assesses Terror War In 60 Minutes Interview”.60 Minutes (CBS News). Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  32. Jump up^ “Clarke Would Welcome Open Testimony”. MSNBC.com. March 28, 2004. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  33. Jump up^ Lemos, Robert (February 20, 2002). “Security Guru: Let’s Secure the Net”. ZDNet
  34. Jump up^ Colbert, Stephen (June 13, 2012). “The Enemy Within: Apes Armed with iPads”. Viacom. Retrieved June 14, 2012.
  35. Jump up^ “Richard Clarke’s bio at Harvard Kennedy School”. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. May 29, 2008. RetrievedJanuary 9, 2009.
  36. Jump up^ Richard A. Clarke (May 31, 2009). “The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse”. Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 22, 2009.
  37. ^ Jump up to:a b Clarke, Richard A. (April 3, 2012). “How China Steals Our Secrets”. The New York Times. Retrieved April 3, 2012.
  38. Jump up^ “Rhode Islanders react to cyber attacks on banking websites”. ABC6 Rhode Island. October 1, 2012. Retrieved September 27, 2012.
  39. Jump up^ Hogan, Michael (June 24, 2013). “Was Hastings’ Car Hacked?”. Huffington Post.
  40. Jump up^ The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (12 December 2013). “Liberty and Security in a Changing World – Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies”. The White House.
  41. Jump up^ Mark Hosenball; Will Dunham (11 April 2014). “White House, spy agencies deny NSA exploited ‘Heartbleed’ bug”. Reuters. Retrieved16 April 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

The Greatest Books Lists — Videos

Posted on November 23, 2014. Filed under: Art, Blogroll, Book, Books, Communications, Culture, Fiction, Literature, Non-Fiction | Tags: , , , , , , , |

The 10 Greatest Books Ever, According to 125 Top Authors (Download Them for Free)

ak cover 2

 Earlier this month, we highlighted The 10 Greatest Films of All Time According to 846 Film Critics. Featuring films by Hitchcock, Kubrick, Welles and Fellini, this master list came together in 2012 when Sight & Sound (the cinema journal of the British Film Institute) asked contemporary critics and directors to name their 12 favorite movies. Nearly 900 cinephiles responded, and, from those submissions, a meta list of 10 was culled.

So how about something similar for books, you ask? For that, we can look back to 2007, when J. Peder Zane, the book editor of the Raleigh News & Observer, asked 125 top writers to name their favorite books — writers like Norman Mailer, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, and Michael Chabon. The lists were all compiled in an edited collection, The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books, and then prefaced by one uber list, “The Top Top Ten.”

Zane explained the methodology behind the uber list as follows: “The participants could pick any work, by any writer, by any time period…. After awarding ten points to each first-place pick, nine to second-place picks, and so on, the results were tabulated to create the Top Top Ten List – the very best of the best.”

The short list appears below, along with links to electronic versions of the works. There’s one notable exception, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. We couldn’t provide that text, but we do have something special — an audio recording of Nabokov reading a chapter from his controversial 1955 novel.

The texts listed below are permanently housed in our collection of Free eBooks, along with many other classics. In many cases, you’ll find audio versions of the same works in our ever-growing collection of Free Audio Books. If you have questions about how to load files onto your Kindle, please see this related instructional video.

Got an issue with any of the selections? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.

1. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

iPad/iPhone – Kindle + Other Formats – Read Online

2. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert

3. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

4. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

6. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

7. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

8. In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust

9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov

10. Middlemarch, by George Eliot

Note: Great literature courses can be found in our collection of 825 Free Online Courses.

http://www.openculture.com/2013/09/the-10-greatest-books-ever.html

J. Peder Zane Interview by Stacey Cochran – Part 1

J. Peder Zane Interview by Stacey Cochran – Part 2

J. Peder Zane Interview by Stacey Cochran – Part 3

The 10 Greatest Books Of All Time

100 Classic Books Of All Time

The 100 Best Books of All Time

100 Greatest Novels of All-Time: Part 1

100 Greatest Novels of All-Time: Part 2

100 Greatest Novels of All-Time: Part 3

100 Greatest Novels of All-Time: Part 4

100 Greatest Novels of All-Time: Part 5

Classic Books You Should Actually Read

Reading Classics as a Woman

Reading Classics + Recommendations

Books I Wish I Could Read Again For The First Time

Where To Begin Part 1

Where To Begin Part 2

Where To Begin Part 3

I Should Be Reading

I Should Be Reading #2

I Should Be Reading #3

I Should Be Reading #4

Friday Reads: November 14, 2014 + Break

Review: Anthem by Ayn Rand

Q&A Part 1: Books and Booktube

 

The Greatest Books of All Time, As Voted by 125 Famous Authors

by

Why Tolstoy is 11.6% better than Shakespeare.

“Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work,” Jennifer Egan once said. This intersection of reading and writing is both a necessary bi-directional life skill for us mere mortals and a secret of iconic writers’ success, as bespoken by their personal libraries. The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books asks 125 of modernity’s greatest British and American writers — including Norman Mailer, Ann Patchett,Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, andJoyce Carol Oates — “to provide a list, ranked, in order, of what [they] consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time– novels, story collections, plays, or poems.”

Of the 544 separate titles selected, each is assigned a reverse-order point value based on the number position at which it appears on any list — so, a book that tops a list at number one receives 10 points, and a book that graces the bottom, at number ten, receives 1 point.

In introducing the lists, David Orr offers a litmus test for greatness:

If you’re putting together a list of ‘the greatest books,’ you’ll want to do two things: (1) out of kindness, avoid anyone working on a novel; and (2) decide what the word ‘great’ means. The first part is easy, but how about the second? A short list of possible definitions of ‘greatness’ might look like this:

1. ‘Great’ means ‘books that have been greatest for me.’
2. ‘Great’ means ‘books that would be considered great by the most people over time.’
3. ‘Great’ has nothing to do with you or me — or people at all. It involves transcendental concepts like God or the Sublime.
4. ‘Great’? I like Tom Clancy.

From David Foster Wallace (#1: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis) toStephen King (#1: The Golden Argosy, a 1955 anthology of the best short stories in the English language), the collection offers a rare glimpse of the building blocks of great creators’ combinatorial creativity — because, as Austin Kleon put it, “you are a mashup of what you let into your life.”

The book concludes with an appendix of “literary number games” summing up some patterns and constructing several overall rankings based on the totality of the different authors’ picks. Among them (*with links to free public domain works where available):

TOP TEN WORKS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
  1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  3. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
  4. Ulysses* by James Joyce
  5. Dubliners* by James Joyce
  6. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  7. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
  8. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
  9. The complete stories of Flannery O’Connor
  10. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
TOP TEN WORKS OF THE 19th CENTURY
  1. Anna Karenina* by Leo Tolstoy
  2. Madame Bovary* by Gustave Flaubert
  3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  5. The stories of Anton Chekhov
  6. Middlemarch* by George Eliot
  7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
  8. Great Expectations* by Charles Dickens
  9. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  10. Emma* by Jane Austen
TOP TEN AUTHORS BY NUMBER OF BOOKS SELECTED
  1. William Shakespeare — 11
  2. William Faulkner — 6
  3. Henry James — 6
  4. Jane Austen — 5
  5. Charles Dickens — 5
  6. Fyodor Dostoevsky — 5
  7. Ernest Hemingway — 5
  8. Franz Kafka — 5
  9. (tie) James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf — 4
TOP TEN AUTHORS BY POINTS EARNED
  1. Leo Tolstoy — 327
  2. William Shakespeare — 293
  3. James Joyce — 194
  4. Vladimir Nabokov — 190
  5. Fyodor Dostoevsky — 177
  6. William Faulkner — 173
  7. Charles Dickens — 168
  8. Anton Chekhov — 165
  9. Gustave Flaubert — 163
  10. Jane Austen — 161

As a nonfiction loyalist, I’d love a similar anthology of nonfiction favorites — then again, famous writers might wave a knowing finger and point me to the complex relationship between truth and fiction.

 http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/01/30/writers-top-ten-favorite-books/

 

The Greatest Books

all | 2000 | 1990 | 1980 | 1970 | 1950 | 1900 |
  1. Image of Ulysses

Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, June 16, 1904. The title parallels and alludes to Odysseus (Latinised into Ulysses), the hero of Homer’s Odyss…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

2 . In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

Image of In Search of Lost Time

Swann’s Way, the first part of A la recherche de temps perdu, Marcel Proust’s seven-part cycle, was published in 1913. In it, Proust introduces the themes that run through the entire work. The narr…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

3 . Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Image of Don Quixote

Alonso Quixano, a retired country gentleman in his fifties, lives in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and a housekeeper. He has become obsessed with books of chivalry, and believes th…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

4 . Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Image of Moby Dick

First published in 1851, Melville’s masterpiece is, in Elizabeth Hardwick’s words, “the greatest novel in American literature.” The saga of Captain Ahab and his monomaniacal pursuit of the white wh…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

5 . The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Image of The Great Gatsby

The novel chronicles an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the “Jazz Age”. Following the shock and chaos of World War I, American society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity during the “roar…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

6 . Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Image of Lolita

The book is internationally famous for its innovative style and infamous for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, middle aged Humbert Humbert, becomes obsessed and se…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

7 . War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Image of War and Peace

Epic in scale, War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of fi…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

8 . One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Image of One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of the 20th century’s enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning car…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

9 . Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Image of Madame Bovary

For daring to peer into the heart of an adulteress and enumerate its contents with profound dispassion, the author of Madame Bovary was tried for “offenses against morality and religion.” What shoc…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

10 . The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Image of The Brothers Karamazov

Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel, The Karamazov Brothers, is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is mur…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

11 . The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Image of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Revered by all of the town’s children and dreaded by all of its mothers, Huckleberry Finn is indisputably the most appealing child-hero in American literature. Unlike the tall-tale, idyllic worl…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

12 . The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Image of The Divine Comedy

Belonging in the immortal company of the great works of literature, Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

13 . The Odyssey by Homer

Image of The Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the m…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

14 . Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Image of Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endu…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

15 . The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Image of The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye is a 1945 novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, the novel has become a common part of high school and college curricula throughout the English-speaking wo…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

16 . The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Image of The Sound and the Fury

The Sound and the Fury is set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. The novel centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats who are struggling to deal with the dissolution of their fa…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

17 . 1984 by George Orwell

Image of 1984

The story follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant assigned the task of perpetuating the regime’s propaganda by falsifying records and political literatur…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

18 . Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Image of Pride and Prejudice

The book is narrated in free indirect speech following the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with matters of upbringing, marriage, moral rightness and education in her aristocratic socie…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

19 . The Iliad by Homer

Image of The Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set in the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and e…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

20 . Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Image of Hamlet

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Pri…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

21 . To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Image of To the Lighthouse

A landmark novel of high modernism, the text, centering on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920, skillfully manipulates temporality and psycholog…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

22 . Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Image of Invisible Man

The novel addresses many of the social and intellectual issues facing African-Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marx…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

23 . King Lear by William Shakespeare

Image of King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606. It is considered one of his greatest works. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

24 . The Trial by Franz Kafka

Image of The Trial

Written in 1914, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and mu…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

25 . Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Image of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

In 1862 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a shy Oxford mathematician with a stammer, created a story about a little girl tumbling down a rabbit hole. Thus began the immortal adventures of Alice, perhaps th…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

26 . Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

Image of Absalom, Absalom!

Absalom, Absalom! is a Southern Gothic novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936. It is a story about three families of the American South, taking place before, during,…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

27 . Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Image of Catch-22

Catch-22 is a satirical, historical novel by the American author Joseph Heller, first published in 1961. The novel, set during the later stages of World War II from 1943 onwards, is frequently cite…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

28 . Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Image of Mrs. Dalloway

Created from two short stories, “Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street” and the unfinished “The Prime Minister”, the novel’s story is of Clarissa’s preparations for a party of which she is to be hostess. Wit…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

29 . Middlemarch by George Eliot

Image of Middlemarch

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. It is her seventh novel, begun in 1869 and then put aside during the final i…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

30 . Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Image of Crime and Punishment

It is a murder story, told from a murder;s point of view, that implicates even the most innocent reader in its enormities. It is a cat-and-mouse game between a tormented young killer and a cheerful…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

31 . Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Image of Heart of Darkness

The story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Although Conrad does not specify the name of th…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

32 . Beloved by Toni Morrison

Image of Beloved

Beloved (1987) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. The novel, her fifth, is loosely based on the life and legal case of the slave Margaret Garner, about whom Morrison…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

33 . Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Image of Wuthering Heights

The narrative is non-linear, involving several flashbacks, and two primary narrators: Mr. Lockwood and Ellen “Nelly” Dean. The novel opens in 1801, with Mr. Lockwood arriving at Thrushcross Grange,…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

34 . The Red and the Black by Stendhal

Image of The Red and the Black

Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black), subtitled Chronique du XIXe siécle (“Chronicle of the 19th century”), is an historical psychological novel in two volumes by Stendhal, published in 1830…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

35 . The Stranger by Albert Camus

Image of The Stranger

Since it was first published in English, in 1946, Albert Camus’s extraordinary first novel, The Stranger (L’Etranger), has had a profound impact on millions of American readers. Through this story …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

36 . One Thousand and One Nights by India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt

Image of One Thousand and One Nights

One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Ni…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

37 . The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Image of The Portrait of a Lady

The story centres on Isabel Archer, an attractive American whom circumstances have brought to Europe. Isabel refuses the offer of marriage to an English peer and to a bulldog-like New Englander, to…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

38 . Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Image of Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative of the title character, a small, plain-faced, intelligent and honest English orphan. The novel goes through five distinct stages: Jane’s childhood at Gateshead…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

39 . Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

Image of Tristram Shandy

As its title suggests, the book is ostensibly Tristram’s narration of his life story. But it is one of the central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make expla…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

40 . David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Image of David Copperfield

The story of the abandoned waif who learns to survive through challenging encounters with distress and misfortune.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

41 . The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Image of The Grapes of Wrath

Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry. In a …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

42 . The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka by Franz Kafka

Image of The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka

The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka is a compilation of all Kafka’s short stories. With the exception of Kafka’s three novels (The Trial, The Castle and Amerika), this collection includes all of Ka…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

43 . Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Image of Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth, commonly just Macbeth, is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometim…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

44 . Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Image of Gulliver's Travels

From the preeminent prose satirist in the English language, a great classic recounting the four remarkable journeys of ship’s surgeon Lemuel Gulliver. For children it remains an enchanting fantasy;…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

45 . The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Image of The Tempest

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been written in 1610–11, (although some researchers have argued for an earlier dating). The play’s protagonist is the banished sorcer…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

46 . Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Image of Great Expectations

Great Expectations is written in the genre of “bildungsroman” or the style of book that follows the story of a man or woman in their quest for maturity, usually starting from childhood and ending i…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

47 . A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Image of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915 and published in book form in 1916. It depicts the formativ…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

48 . A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Image of A Passage to India

A Passage to India is set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Aziz, his British friend Cyril Fi…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

49 . The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Image of The Sun Also Rises

The novel explores the lives and values of the so-called “Lost Generation,” chronicling the experiences of Jake Barnes and several acquaintances on their pilgrimage to Pamplona for the annual San F…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

50 . Collected Fiction by Jorge Luis Borges

Image of Collected Fiction

From his 1935 debut with The Universal History of Iniquity, through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, these enigmatic, elaborate, imaginative inventions display Borges’…

  1. 51 . Othello by William Shakespeare

    Image of Othello

    Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story “Un Capitano Moro” (“A Moorish Captain”) b…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

52 . To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Image of To Kill a Mockingbird

As a Southern Gothic novel and a Bildungsroman, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses is…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

53 . Richard III by William Shakespeare

Image of Richard III

Final play in Shakespeare’s masterly dramatization of the struggle for power between the Houses of York and Lancaster. Richard is a stunning archvillain who schemes, seduces, betrays and murders hi…

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

54 . Candide by Voltaire

Image of Candide

Candide, ou l’Optimisme is a French satire written in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. Candide is characterized by its sarcastic tone and its erratic, fantastical, an…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

55 . The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Image of The Magic Mountain

The Magic Mountain is a novel by Thomas Mann, first published in November 1924. It is widely considered to be one of the most influential works of 20th century German literature.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

56 . The Aeneid by Virgil

Image of The Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC (29–19 BC) that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

57 . The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Image of The Good Soldier

Ford Madox Ford wrote The Good Soldier, the book on which his reputation most surely rests, in deliberate emulation of the nineteenth-century French novels he so admired. In this way he was able to…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

58 . As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Image of As I Lay Dying

The book is told in stream of consciousness writing style by 15 different narrators in 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family’s quest—noble or selfish—to honor he…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

59 . The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov

Image of The Stories of Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the history of world literature. His career as a dram…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

60 . Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Image of Midnight's Children

Midnight’s Children is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the independence and partition of India, which took place at midnight on 15 August 1947. The protagonis…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

61 . Journey to the End of The Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Image of Journey to the End of The Night

Journey to the End of Night is the first novel of Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This semi-autobiographical work describes antihero Ferdinand Bardamu. His surname, Bardamu, is derived from the French word…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

62 . Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Image of Things Fall Apart

A novel of great power that turns the world upside down. The Nigerian novelist Achebe reached back to the early days of his people’s encounter with colonialism, the 1890’s, though the white man and…

– Time

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

63 . Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Image of Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass (1855) is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Among the poems in the collection are “Song of Myself,” “I Sing the Body Electric,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Roc…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

64 . Emma by Jane Austen

Image of Emma

Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, “I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.”[1] In the very first sentence she introduces the title character as “Emma Woodhouse, …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

65 . Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Image of Vanity Fair

No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her senti…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

66 . The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Image of The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway’s most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordea…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

67 . Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Image of Pale Fire

The novel is presented as a poem titled “Pale Fire” with commentary by a friend of the poet’s. Together these elements form two story lines in which both authors are central characters. The int…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

68 . The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Image of The Canterbury Tales

With their astonishing diversity of tone and subject matter, The Canterbury Tales have become one of the touchstones of medieval literature. Translated here into modern English, these tales of a mo…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

69 . Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Image of Dead Souls

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer, was first published in 1842, and is one of the most prominent works of 19th-century Russian literature. Gogol himself saw it as an “epic poem in prose”,…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

70 . Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

Image of Under the Volcano

To describe his perennial theme, Lowry once borrowed the words of the critic Edmund Wilson: “the forces in man which cause him to be terrified of himself.” You see exactly what he means in this cor…

– Time

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

71 . The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

Image of The Tin Drum

Acclaimed as the greatest German novel written since the end of World War II, The Tin Drum is the autobiography of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath, who has lived through the long Nazi nightmare and…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

72 . The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

Image of The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

73 . Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Image of Tom Jones

A foundling of mysterious parentage brought up by Mr. Allworthy on his country estate, Tom Jones is deeply in love with the seemingly unattainable Sophia Western, the beautiful daughter of the neig…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

74 . The Castle by Franz Kafka

Image of The Castle

The Castle is a novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist, known only as K., struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities of a castle who govern the village where he wants to work as a la…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

75 . On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Image of On the Road

On the Road is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of the post…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

76 . Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence

Image of Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers is one of the landmark novels of the twentieth century. When it appeared in 1913, it was immediately recognized as the first great modern restatement of the oedipal drama, and it is…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

77 . Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Image of Slaughterhouse-Five

An anti-war science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II experiences and journeys through time of a soldier called Billy Pilgrim.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

78 . The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Image of The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita (Russian: Ма́стер и Маргари́та) is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, woven around the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consi…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

79 . Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Image of Their Eyes Were Watching God

The main character, an African American woman in her early forties named Janie Crawford, tells the story of her life and journey via an extended flashback to her best friend, Pheoby, so that Pheoby…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

80 . My Antonia by Willa Cather

Image of My Antonia

In Willa Cather’s own estimation, My Antonia, first published in 1918, was “the best thing I’ve ever done.” An enduring paperback bestseller on Houghton Mifflin’s literary list, this hauntingly elo…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

81 . Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Image of Les Misérables

Les Misérables is a novel by French author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century. It follows the lives and interactions of several French characters ov…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

82 . Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

Image of Nostromo

Edited with an introduction and notes by Martin Seymour-Smith. In his evocation of the republic of Costaguana, set amid the exotic and grandiose scenery of South America, Conrad reveals not only th…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

83 . The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Image of The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by philologist and Oxford University professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien’s earlier, less complex children’…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

84 . The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Image of The Scarlet Letter

Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbors she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter, Pearl, is the product …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

85 . Native Son by Richard Wright

Image of Native Son

The novel tells the story of 20-year old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago’s South Side ghetto in the 1930s. Bigger was always getting into troubl…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

86 . The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Image of The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence centers on an upperclass couple’s impending marriage, and the introduction of a scandalous woman whose presence threatens their happiness. Though the novel questions the assump…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

87 . Light in August by William Faulkner

Image of Light in August

Lght in August is an exploration of racial conflict in the society of the Southern United States.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

88 . Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Image of Gone With the Wind

Gone With the Wind is set in Jonesboro and Atlanta, Georgia during the American Civil War and Reconstruction and follows the life of Scarlett O’Hara, the daughter of an Irish immigrant plantation o…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

89 . Oedipus the King by Sophocles

Image of Oedipus the King

Oedipus the King is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed c. 429 BC. It was the second of Sophocles’s three Theban plays to be produced, but it comes first in the internal chron…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

90 . For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Image of For Whom the Bell Tolls

It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a communist guerilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As an expert in the use of explosives, he is …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

91 . Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Image of Rabbit, Run

Rabbit, Run depicts five months in the life of a 26-year-old former high school basketball player named Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom, and his attempts to escape the constraints of his life.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

92 . Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats by W. B. Yeats

Image of Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

93 . Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Image of Robinson Crusoe

A shipwreck’s sole escapee, Robinson Crusoe endures 28 years of solitude on a Caribbean island and manages not only to survive but also to prevail. A warm humanity, evocative details of his struggl…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

94 . Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Image of Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Violated by one man, forsaken by another, Tess Durbeyfield is the magnificent and spirited heroine of Thomas Hardy’s immortal work. Of all the great English novelists, no one writes more eloquently…

–

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

95 . Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

Image of Father Goriot

Le Père Goriot (English: Father Goriot or Old Goriot) is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel s…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

96 . Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Image of Frankenstein

At this challenge, Mary Shelley began work on the ‘ghost story’ that was to evolve into the most celebrated horror novel in literary history. Frankenstein was published the next year and become the…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

97 . The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Image of The Tale of Genji

The Tale of Genji is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early eleventh century, around the peak of the Heian Period. It is sometimes…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

98 . Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Image of Buddenbrooks

Buddenbrooks was Thomas Mann’s first novel, published in 1901 when he was twenty-six years old. It portrays the downfall (already announced in the subtitle, Decline of a family) of a wealthy mer…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

99 . Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

Image of Decameron

In the early summer of the year 1348, as a terrible plague ravages the city, ten charming young Florentines take refuge in country villas to tell each other stories — a hundred stories of love, adv…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

100 . The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

Image of The Waste Land

The Waste Land is a 434 line modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called “one of the most important poems of the 20th century.” Despite the alleged obscurity of the poem – i…

  1. Image of Bleak House

    Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly instalments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens’s finest novels, containing one of …

 

I’ve read this book

 

I want to read this book

 

102 . Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

Image of Orlando: A Biography

In her most exuberant, most fanciful novel, Woolf has created a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, Orlando is a young noble…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

103 . The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Image of The Possessed

The Possessed is an 1872 novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Though titled The Possessed in the initial English translation, Dostoevsky scholars and later translations favour the titles The Devils or Demon…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

104 . Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Image of Brave New World

Set in the London of AD 2540 (632 A.F. in the book), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embod…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

105 . Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais

Image of Gargantua and Pantagruel

The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel (in French, La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of t…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

106 . American Pastoral by Philip Roth

Image of American Pastoral

American Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel concerning Seymour “Swede” Levov, a Jewish-American businessman and former high school athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov’s happy and conventional upper…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

107 . The Ambassadors by Henry James

Image of The Ambassadors

This dark comedy, one of the masterpieces of James’ final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of his widowed fiancée’s supposedly wayward son. Streth…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

108 . Paradise Lost by John Milton

Image of Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books. A second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

109 . The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Image of The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep (1939) is a crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about hardboiled detective Philip Marlowe. The work has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and a…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

110 . Animal Farm by George Orwell

Image of Animal Farm

Animal Farm is a dystopian novella by George Orwell. Published in England on 17 August 1945, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II. Orwell, a democrat…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

111 . The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Image of The Count of Monte Cristo

Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, The Count of Monet Cristo recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

112 . Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Anderson

Image of Fairy Tales and Stories

a Danish author and poet noted for his children’s stories. These include “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Little Mermaid”, “Thumbelina”, “The Little Match Girl”, and the “The Ugl…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

113 . Hunger by Knut Hamsun

Image of Hunger

Hunger is a novel by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun and was published in its final form in 1890. Parts of it had been published anonymously in the Danish magazine Ny Jord in 1888. The novel is ha…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

114 . The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire

Image of The Flowers of Evil

Les Fleurs du mal (English: The Flowers of Evil) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857 (see 1857 in poetry), it was important in the symbolist and modernist mo…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

115 . All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

Image of All the King's Men

All the King’s Men portrays the dramatic political ascent and governorship of Willie Stark, a driven, cynical populist in the American South during the 1930s.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

116 . The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Image of The Golden Notebook

This book, as well as the couple that followed it, enters the realm of what Margaret Drabble in The Oxford Companion to English Literature has called Lessing’s “inner space fiction”, her work that …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

117 . A Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert

Image of A Sentimental Education

The novel describes the life of a young man (Frederic Moreau) living through the revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire, and his love for an older woman (based on the wife …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

118 . Antigone by Sophocles

Image of Antigone

Antigone is a tragedy by Sophocles written before or in 442 BC. Chronologically, it is the third of the three Theban plays but was written first.[1] The play expands on the Theban legend that preda…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

119 . Howards End by E. M. Forster

Image of Howards End

“Only Connect,” Forster’s key aphorism, informs this novel about an English country house, Howards End, and its influence on the lives of the wealthy and materialistic Wilcoxes; the cultured, ideal…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

120 . Dangerous Liaison by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Image of Dangerous Liaison

The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. Its prime movers, the Vicomte…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

121 . The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Image of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

A slender novel but far from flimsy, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie enrolls the reader at Edinburgh’s fictional Marcia Blaine School for Girls under the tutelage of one Jean Brodie, a magnetic, unco…

– Time

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

122 . The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor by Flannery O’Connor

Image of The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor

The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O’Connor’s monumental contribution to American fiction. There are thirty-one stories here in all, including twelve that do n…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

123 . Herzog by Saul Bellow

Image of Herzog

Herzog is a novel set in 1964, in the United States, and is about the midlife crisis of a Jewish man named Moses E. Herzog. He is just emerging from his second divorce, this one particularly acrimo…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

124 . Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Image of Clarissa

It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is one of the longest novels in the English language.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

125 . An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

Image of An American Tragedy

Clyde Griffiths is a young man with ambitions. He’s in love with a rich girl, but it’s a poor girl he has gotten pregnant, Roberta Alden, who works with him at his uncle’s factory. One day he takes…

– Time

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

126 . A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

Image of A Doll's House

A Doll’s House is an 1879 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Written one year after The Pillars of Society, the play was the first of Ibsen’s to create a sensation and is now perhaps his mo…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

127 . The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal

Image of The Charterhouse of Parma

Balzac considered it the most important French novel of his time. André Gide later deemed it the greatest of all French novels, and Henry James judged it to be a masterpiece. Now, in a major litera…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

128 . A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

Image of A Handful of Dust

In A Handful of Dust Waugh satirises the upper class, the mercantile class and the establishments (for example: the Church) using many effective literary devices which characterise most of his work…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

129 . Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Image of Faust

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust is a tragic play, although more appropriately it should be defined a tragicomedy, despite the very title of the work. It was published in two parts: Faust. Der Tr…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

130 . Dubliners by James Joyce

Image of Dubliners

Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. The fifteen stories were meant to be a naturalistic depiction of the Irish middle class life in and around Dub…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

131 . The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Image of The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale is a feminist dystopian novel, a work of science fiction or speculative fiction, written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood and first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

132 . Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson

Image of Poems of Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

133 . The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Image of The Leopard

The Leopard is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento. Published posthumously in 1958, after two rejections by the …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

134 . Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Image of Tender Is the Night

The story is that of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychoanalyst and his wife, Nicole, who is also one of his patients. It would be Fitzgerald’s first novel in nine years, and …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

135 . The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Image of The Wind in the Willows

A classic in children’s literature The Wind in the Willow is alternately slow moving and fast paced. The book focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England. T…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

136 . Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Image of Lucky Jim

Set sometime around 1950, Lucky Jim follows the exploits of the eponymous James (Jim) Dixon, a reluctant Medieval history lecturer at an unnamed provincial English university. Having made a bad fir…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

137 . Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Image of Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies discusses how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British schoolboys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, but with disastrous results….

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

138 . Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Image of Lord Jim

Conrad’s great novel of guilt and redemption follows the first mate on board the Patna, a raw youth with dreams of heroism who, in an act of cowardice, abandons his ship. His unbearable guilt and i…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

139 . Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett

Image of Malone Dies

Malone Dies is a novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in 1951, in French, as Malone Meurt, and later translated into English by the author.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

140 . Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Image of Treasure Island

Traditionally considered a coming-of-age story, it is an adventure tale known for its superb atmosphere, character and action, and also a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality—as seen in Long…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

141 . Metamorphoses by Ovid

Image of Metamorphoses

The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a narrative poem in fifteen books that describes the creation and history of the world. Completed in 8 AD, it has remained one of the most popular works …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

142 . The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Image of The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Written in Charlotte, North Carolina in a house on East Blvd, it is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the U.S. state of Georgia.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

143 . Oresteia by Aeschylus

Image of Oresteia

The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus. When originally performed it was accompanied by Proteus, a satyr play t…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

144 . Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Image of Charlotte's Web

The novel tells the story of a pig named Wilbur and his friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered by the farmer, Charlotte writes messages praisin…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

145 . Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann

Image of Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus is a German novel written by Thomas Mann, begun in 1943 and published in 1947 as Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde (“Doct…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

146 . Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence

Image of Women in Love

Perhaps no other of the world’s great writers lived and wrote with the passionate intensity of D. H. Lawrence. And perhaps no other of his books so explores the mysteries between men and women–both…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

147 . The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Image of The Idiot

The Idiot is a novel written by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky and first published in 1868. It was first published serially in Russian in Russky Vestnik, St. Petersburg, 1868-1869. The Idiot…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

148 . Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Image of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (French: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1870. It tells the story of Captain Nem…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

149 . The World According to Garp by John Irving

Image of The World According to Garp

The story deals with the life of T. S. Garp. His mother, Jenny Fields, is a strong-willed nurse who wants a child but not a husband. She encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technica…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

150 . Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Image of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Spawned by a nightmare that Stevenson had, this classic tale of the dark, primordial night of the soul remains a masterpiece of the duality of good and evil within us all.

151 . A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

  1. Image of A Farewell to Arms

    The novel is told through the point of view of Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian army during World War I.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

152 . I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Image of I, Claudius

I, Claudius deals sympathetically with the life of the Roman Emperor Claudius and cynically with the history of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

153 . Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo

Image of Pedro Paramo

Pedro Páramo is a short novel written by Juan Rulfo, originally published in 1955. In just the 23 FCE editions and reprintings, it had sold by November 1997 1,143,000 copies. Other editions in Mexi…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

154 . The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever

Image of The Stories of John Cheever

The Stories of John Cheever is a 1978 short story collection by American author John Cheever. It contains some of his most famous stories, including “The Enormous Radio,” “Goodbye, My Brother,” “Th…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

155 . Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike

Image of Rabbit Is Rich

Rabbit Is Rich is a 1981 novel by John Updike. It is the third novel of the four-part series which begins with Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux, and concludes with Rabbit At Rest. There is also a relat…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

156 . The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

Image of The Man Without Qualities

The Man without Qualities (1930-42) is a novel in three books by the Austrian novelist and essayist Robert Musil. The main issue of this “story of ideas”, which takes place in the time of the Au…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

157 . Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

Image of Rabbit at Rest

In John Updike’s fourth and final novel about ex-basketball player Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, the hero has acquired heart trouble, a Florida condo, and a second grandchild. His son, Nelson, is behavi…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

158 . Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin

Image of Berlin Alexanderplatz

The story concerns a small-time criminal, Franz Biberkopf, fresh from prison, who is drawn into the underworld. When his criminal mentor murders the prostitute whom Biberkopf has been relying on as…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

159 . Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Image of Wide Sargasso Sea

In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Bertha is the madwoman locked in the attic by her husband Rochester, the simmering Englishman whose children Jane has been hired to tutor. In Bronte’s novel we lear…

– Time

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

160 . Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Image of Tropic of Cancer

Set in France (primarily Paris) during the 1930s, it is the tale of Miller’s life as a struggling writer. Combining fiction and autobiography, some chapters follow a strict narrative and refer to M…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

161 . Epic of Gilgamesh by Unknown

Image of Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Ancient Iraq and is among the earliest known works of literary writings. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems abo…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

162 . The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Image of The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer tells the story of Binx Bolling, a young stockbroker in post-war New Orleans. The decline of Southern traditions, the problems of his family and his traumatic experiences in the Korea…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

163 . The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

Image of The Adventures of Augie March

The Adventures of Augie March (1953) is a novel by Saul Bellow. It centers on the eponymous character who grows up during the Great Depression. This picaresque novel is an example of bildungsroman,…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

164 . Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

Image of Fathers and Sons

Fathers and Sons is an 1862 novel by Ivan Turgenev, his best known work. The fathers and children of the novel refers to the growing divide between the two generations of Russians, and the chara…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

165 . Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

Image of Pilgrim's Progress

One of the most powerful dramas of Christian faith ever written, this captivating allegory of man’s religious journey in search of salvation follows the pilgrim as he travels an obstacle-filled roa…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

166 . Selected Stories of Alice Munro by Alice Munro

Image of Selected Stories of Alice Munro

Selected Stories is a volume of short stories by Alice Munro, published by McClelland and Stewart in 1996. It collects stories previously published in her eight previous books.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

167 . Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway

Image of Stories of Ernest Hemingway

Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. This collection, The Short Stories, originally published in 1938, is definitiv…

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

168 . Medea by Euripides

Image of Medea

Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

169 . Rabbit Redux by John Updike

Image of Rabbit Redux

Rabbit Redux finds the former high-school basketball star, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, working a dead-end job and approaching middle age in the downtrodden and fictional city of Brewer, Pennsylvania, …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

170 . If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

Image of If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

Calvino’s anti-novel is about the efforts of his two characters — a man called only The Reader, and the Other Reader, a woman named Ludmilla — to read ten very different novels. They are never able…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

171 . The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Image of The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely st…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

172 . Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Image of Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago is a 20th century novel by Boris Pasternak, first published in 1957. The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a medical doctor and poet. It tells the story of a man to…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

173 . The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Image of The Call of the Wild

The plot concerns a previously domesticated and even somewhat pampered dog named Buck, whose primordial instincts return after a series of events finds him serving as a sled dog in the treacherous…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

174 . Call It Sleep by Henry Roth

Image of Call It Sleep

Call It Sleep is the story of an Austrian-Jewish immigrant family in New York in the early part of the twentieth century. Six-year-old David Schearl has a close and loving relationship with his mot…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

175 . Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

Image of Gravity's Rainbow

The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest undertake…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

176 . Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

Image of Winesburg, Ohio

Before Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and Richard Ford, there was Sherwood Anderson, who, with Winesburg, Ohio, charted a new direction in American fiction — evoking with lyrical simplicity quiet mo…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

177 . A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

Image of A Bend in the River

In the “brilliant novel” (“The New York Times) V.S. Naipaul takes us deeply into the life of one man–an Indian who, uprooted by the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in an isol…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

178 . Germinal by Émile Zola

Image of Germinal

Germinal is the thirteenth novel in Émile Zola’s twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola’s masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, the no…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

179 . The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Image of The Color Purple

Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on female black life during the 1930s in the Southern United States, addressing the numerous issues including their exceedingly low position …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

180 . The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Image of The Sorrows of Young Werther

The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787. Werthe…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

181 . Persuasion by Jane Austen

Image of Persuasion

Of all Jane Austen’s great and delightful novels, Persuasion is widely regarded as the most moving. It is the story of a second chance. Anne Elliot, daughter of the snobbish, spendthrift Sir Walte…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

182 . Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Image of Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot (pronounced /ˈɡɒdoʊ/) is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for someone named Godot. Godot’s absence, as well as numerous other aspects…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

183 . The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett

Image of The Unnamable

The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett. It is the third and final entry in Beckett’s “Trilogy” of novels, which begins with Molloy followed by Malone Dies. It was originally published in F…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

184 . Molloy by Samuel Beckett

Image of Molloy

Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett. The English translation is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

185 . The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

Image of The Book of Disquiet

The Book Of Disquietude or The Book of Disquiet (Livro do Desassossego in Portuguese), published posthumously, is one of the greatest works by Fernando Pessoa. It is signed under the semi-heteronym…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

186 . A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Image of A Clockwork Orange

The title is taken from an old Cockney expression, “as queer as a clockwork orange” and alludes to the prevention of the main character’s exercise of his free will through the use of a classical co…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

187 . The Odes by Horace

Image of The Odes

The Odes (Latin: Carmina) are a collection in four books of Latin lyric poems by Horace. The Horatian ode format and style has been emulated since by other poets. Books 1 to 3 were published in 23 …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

188 . Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo

Image of Confessions of Zeno

Zeno’s Conscience is a novel by Italian businessman and author Italo Svevo. The main character is Zeno Cosini and the book is the fictional character’s memoirs that he keeps at the insistence of hi…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

189 . Independent People by Halldor Laxness

Image of Independent People

Independent People is an epic novel by Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness, published in 1946. It deals with the struggle of poor Icelandic farmers in the early 20th century, only freed from debt bondag…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

190 . The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Image of The Complete Sherlock Holmes

Since his first appearance in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has been one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

191 . Don Juan by Molière

Image of Don Juan

Don Juan (Spanish, or Don Giovanni in Italian) is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

192 . Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

Image of Memoirs of Hadrian

Memoirs of Hadrian is a novel by the French writer Marguerite Yourcenar about the life and death of Roman Emperor Hadrian. The book was first published in France in French in 1951 as Mémoires d’Had…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

193 . Complete Poems of Giacomo Leopardi by Giacomo Leopardi

Image of Complete Poems of Giacomo Leopardi

Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (June 29, 1798 – June 14, 1837) was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

194 . Ramayana by Valmiki

Image of Ramayana

The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon (smṛti). The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

195 . Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Image of Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West is a 1985 Western novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. It was McCarthy’s fifth book, and was published by Random House. The narrative foll…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

196 . The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos

Image of The 42nd Parallel

With his U.S.A. trilogy, comprising THE 42nd PARALLEL, 1919, and THE BIG MONEY, John Dos Passos is said by many to have written the great American novel. While Fitzgerald and Hemingway were cultiva…

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

197 . The Big Money by John Dos Passos

Image of The Big Money

THE BIG MONEY completes John Dos Passos’s three-volume “fable of America’s materialistic success and moral decline” (American Heritage) and marks the end of “one of the most ambitious projects that…

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

198 . Nineteen Nineteen by John Dos Passos

Image of Nineteen Nineteen

With 1919, the second volume of his U.S.A. trilogy, John Dos Passos continues his “vigorous and sweeping panorama of twentieth-century America” (Forum), lauded on publication of the first volume no…

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

199 . The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Image of The Pickwick Papers

Written for publication as a serial, The Pickwick Papers is a sequence of loosely-related adventures. The novel’s main character, Mr. Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, is a kind and wealthy old gentleman, …

  • I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

200 . Los Siete Locos by Roberto Arlt

Image of Los Siete Locos

Los siete locos is a novel of Argentine writer Roberto Arlt published in October 1929 . In the same some of the problems posed by the philosophical existentialism develop. Moral issues, loneliness,…

‘
  1. Image of Jude the Obscure

    In 1895 Hardy’s final novel, the great tale of Jude the Obscure, sent shock waves of indignation rolling across Victorian England. Hardy had dared to write frankly about sexuality and to indict the…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

202 . The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette

Image of The Princess of Cleves

La Princesse de Clèves is a French novel, regarded by many as the beginning of the modern tradition of the psychological novel, and as a great classic work. Its author is generally held to be Madam…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

203 . Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Image of Go Tell it on the Mountain

The novel examines the role of the Christian Church in the lives of African-Americans, both as a source of repression and moral hypocrisy and as a source of inspiration and community. It also, more…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

204 . The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Image of The Red Badge of Courage

The Red Badge of Courage is an 1895 war novel by American author Stephen Crane. It is considered one of the most influential works in American literature. The novel, a depiction on the cruelty of t…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

205 . Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Image of Little Women

Written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, it was published in two parts in 1868 and 1869. The novel follows the lives of four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth and Am…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

206 . If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem by William Faulkner

Image of If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem

In this feverishly beautiful novel—originally titled If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem by Faulkner, and now published in the authoritative Library of America text—William Faulkner interweaves two narrati…

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

207 . The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Image of The Woman in White

Thus young Walter Hartright first meets the mysterious woman in white in what soon became one of the most popular novels of the nineteenth century. Secrets, mistaken identities, surprise revelation…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

208 . The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Image of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

World War II has just begun and four children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, are evacuated from London in 1940 to escape the Blitz. They are sent to live with Professor Digory Kirke, who …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

209 . The Stand by Stephen King

Image of The Stand

The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel by American author Stephen King. It re-works the scenario in his earlier short story, Night Surf. The novel was originally published in 1978 and…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

210 . A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud

Image of A Season in Hell

“With skill and imagination, Bertrand Mathieu gives us an intimacy of the spoken American that allows readers to absorb themselves in Rimbaud’s private drama as in an obsessive dream of our own…….

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

211 . Stories of Guy de Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Image of Stories of Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short story. This collection displays his lively diversity, with tales that vary in theme and tone, ranging from tragedy and satire to comedy and farce. In a l…

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

212 . Jakob Von Gunten by Robert Walser

Image of Jakob Von Gunten

The Swiss writer Robert Walser is one of the quiet geniuses of twentieth-century literature. Largely self-taught and altogether indifferent to worldly success, Walser wrote a range of short stories…

– Google

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

213 . The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Image of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the title of the first of five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. The novel is an adaptation of th…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

214 . The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Image of The Waves

The Waves, first published in 1931, is Virginia Woolf’s most experimental novel. It consists of soliloquies spoken by the book’s six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis.[1]…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

215 . The Poems of Robert Frost by Robert Frost

Image of The Poems of Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in America. He is highly regarded for his realistic de…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

216 . Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

Image of Finnegans Wake

Having done the longest day in literature with his monumental Ulysses (1922), James Joyce set himself an even greater challenge for his next book — the night. “A nocturnal state…. That is what I …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

217 . Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles

Image of Oedipus at Colonus

Oedipus at Colonus is one of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles’ death in 406 BC and produced by his grandson (also called Sophocles…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

218 . Money by Martin Amis

Image of Money

Money tells the story of, and is narrated by, John Self, a successful director of commercials who is invited to New York by Fielding Goodney, a film producer, in order to shoot his first film. Self…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

219 . Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Image of Rebecca

Rebecca is considered to be one of her best works. Some observers have noted parallels with Jane Eyre. Much of the novel was written while she was staying in Alexandria, Egypt, where her husband wa…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

220 . Henderson The Rain King by Saul Bellow

Image of Henderson The Rain King

Bellow’s glorious, spirited story of an eccentric American millionaire who finds a home of sorts in deepest Africa.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

221 . Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

Image of Look Homeward, Angel

It is Wolfe’s first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American Bildungsroman. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel cover…

– 1929

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

222 . Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Image of Song of Solomon

It follows the life of Macon “Milkman” Dead III, an African-American male living in Michigan, from birth to adulthood. The main theme in the novel is Milkman’s quest for identity as a black man in …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

223 . Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Image of Main Street

In this classic satire of small-town America, beautiful young Carol Kennicott comes to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, with dreams of transforming the provincial old town into a place of beauty and cult…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

224 . A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

Image of A Dance to the Music of Time

A Dance to the Music of Time is a twelve-volume cycle of novels by Anthony Powell, inspired by the painting of the same name by Nicolas Poussin. One of the longest works of fiction in literature, i…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

225 . De Rerum Natura by Lucretius

Image of De Rerum Natura

De rerum natura is a first century BC epic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in dactylic hexam…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

226 . Jacques the Fatalist and His Master by Denis Diderot

Image of Jacques the Fatalist and His Master

The main subject of the book is the relationship between the valet Jacques and his master (who is never named). The two are traveling to a destination the narrator leaves insistently vague, and to …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

227 . Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Image of Death Comes for the Archbishop

Death Comes for the Archbishop is a 1927 novel by Willa Cather. It concerns the attempts of a Catholic bishop and a priest to establish a diocese in New Mexico Territory.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

228 . Neuromancer by William Gibson

Image of Neuromancer

The novel tells the story of a washed-up computer hacker hired by a mysterious employer to work on the ultimate hack. Gibson explores artificial intelligence, virtual reality, genetic engineering, …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

229 . The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence

Image of The Rainbow

Set in the rural midlands of England, The Rainbow revolves around three generations of the Brangwen family over a period of more than sixty years, setting them against the emergence of modern Engla…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

230 . Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Image of Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel “deals with what is t…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

231 . Atonement by Ian McEwan

Image of Atonement

Atonement is a 2001 novel by British author Ian McEwan. It tells the story of protagonist Briony Tallis’s crime and how it changes her life, as well as those of her sister Cecilia and her lover Rob…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

232 . The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hašek

Image of The Good Soldier Svejk

The Good Soldier Švejk is the abbreviated title of an unfinished satirical novel by Jaroslav Hašek. It was illustrated by Josef Lada and George Grosz after Hašek’s death. The original Czech title o…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

233 . The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Image of The House of Mirth

From the esteemed author of The Age of Innocence–a black comedy about vast wealth and a woman who can define herself only through the perceptions of others. Lily Bart’s quest to find a husband who…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

234 . White Noise by Don DeLillo

Image of White Noise

Set at a bucolic midwestern college known only as The-College-on-the-Hill, White Noise follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitle…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

235 . One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Image of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Narrated by the gigantic but docile half-Indian “Chief” Bromden, who has pretended to be a deaf-mute for several years, the story focuses on the antics of the rebellious Randle Patrick McMurphy, a …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

236 . Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Image of Darkness at Noon

Darkness At Noon stands as an unequaled fictional portrayal of the nightmare politics of our time. Its hero is an aging revolutionary, imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the Party to which …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

237 . Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot by T.S. Eliot

Image of Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American poet, playwright, and literary critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century.

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

238 . Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

Image of Our Mutual Friend

Our Mutual Friend (written in the years 1864–65) is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is in many ways one of his most sophisticated works, combining deep psychological insight with ri…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

239 . The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead

Image of The Man Who Loved Children

The novel tells the story of a highly dysfunctional family, the Pollits. The story centers on the family’s impoverishment, the failure of the father Sam to provide for them, the parents’ marital ba…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

240 . At Swim Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien

Image of At Swim Two-Birds

At Swim-Two-Birds is a 1939 novel by Irish author Brian O’Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O’Brien. It is widely considered to be O’Brien’s masterpiece, and one of the most sophisticated ex…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

241 . Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

Image of Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the first novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling and featuring Harry Potter, a young wizard. It describes how Harry discovers he is a …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

242 . Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne

Image of Winnie the Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh, commonly shortened to Pooh Bear and once referred to as Edward Bear, is a fictional bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Wi…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

243 . Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin

Image of Dream of the Red Chamber

Dream of the Red Chamber is a masterpiece of Chinese vernacular literature and one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. The novel was composed some time in the middle of the 18th century during …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

244 . Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Image of Pippi Longstocking

Pippi Longstocking is a children’s book written in 1945 by Astrid Lindgren. Pippi is a 9-year old that lives in an old villa in a Swedish town. (which remains unnamed for the series) She meet To…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

245 . History by Elsa Morante

Image of History

History: A Novel is a novel by Italian author Elsa Morante, largely seen to be her most famous and controversial work. Published in 1974, it narrates the story of a woman, Ida Ramundo, and her two …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

246 . Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

Image of Naked Lunch

The book is structured as a series of loosely-connected vignettes. Burroughs himself stated that the chapters are intended to be read in any order. The reader follows the narration of junkie Willia…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

247 . The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth

Image of The Sot-Weed Factor

The novel is set in the 1680s and 90s in London and on the eastern shore of the colony of Maryland. It tells the story of an English poet named Ebenezer Cooke who is given the title “Poet Laureate …

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

248 . In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway

Image of In Our Time

When In Our Time was published in 1925, it was praised by Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emot…

 

I’ve read this book

I want to read this book

 

249 . The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke

Image of The Duino Elegies

Rilke’s great cycle of ten elegies, perhaps his most profound poetic achievement, had its inception on the morning of January 21, 1912, but was interrupted by the First World War and not completed …

– Google
  • I’ve read this book
  • I want to read this book

  1. 250 . The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen

    Image of The Death of the Heart

    The Death of the Heart is a 1938 novel by Elizabeth Bowen set between the two world wars. It is about a sixteen year old orphan, Portia Quayne, who moves to London to live with her half-brother Tho…

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Stephen King — Hearts in Atlantis — Videos

Posted on November 16, 2014. Filed under: Blogroll, Books, Communications, Culture, Documentary, Entertainment, Fiction, Films, Life, media, Movies, Music, Music, People, Photos, Video, War, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , |

book_coverHearts-in-Atlantishearts in atlantishearts-in-atlantis-posterMCDHEIN EC035heartsinatlantis04bob_momjpg06tedMCDHEIN EC033hearts_can breakbobby and carol 22901.tif

hearts in atlantis

Hearts In Atlantis (HD) Trailer

Hearts in Atlantis – kiss scene

Hearts In Atlantis (Warner Bros)

Hearts In Atlantis – Kids and Ted scene

Hearts in Atlantis – Bully meets Hannibal

Hearts in Atlantis Ted and Carol

Hearts in Atlantis – 1 – a friend is dead …

Heart In Atlantis Soundtrack “Summer Vacation”

A Conversation With Stephen King (1:38:42)

Stephen King’s “Hearts In Atlantis” Book Review

OMA Reviews Hearts in Atlantis

Hearts in Atlantis By: Stephen King a review

The Platters “Twilight Time”

[youtube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpdaga8cCxU]

“Twilight Time”

Heavenly shades of night are falling, it’s twilight time
Out of the mist your voice is calling, ’tis twilight time
When purple-colored curtains mark the end of day
I’ll hear you, my dear, at twilight timeDeepening shadows gather splendor as day is done
Fingers of night will soon surrender the setting sun
I count the moments darling till you’re here with me
Together at last at twilight timeHere, in the afterglow of day, we keep our rendezvous beneath the blue
And, in the same and sweet old way I fall in love again as I did then

Deep in the dark your kiss will thrill me like days of old
Lighting the spark of love that fills me with dreams untold
Each day I pray for evening just to be with you
Together at last at twilight time

Here, in the afterglow of day, we keep our rendezvous beneath the blue
And, in the same and sweet old way I fall in love again as I did then

Deep in the dark your kiss will thrill me like days of old
Lighting the spark of love that fills me with dreams untold
Each day I pray for evening just to be with you
Together at last at twilight time
Together at last at twilight time

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Mike Maden — Drone — Videos

Posted on August 2, 2014. Filed under: American History, Blogroll, Books, College, Communications, Crime, Crisis, Doumentary, Drones, Drug Cartels, Education, Energy, Entertainment, Fiction, Films, Foreign Policy, Freedom, government spending, history, Homicide, Illegal, Immigration, Islam, Language, Law, liberty, Life, Links, media, Movies, Natural Gas, Natural Gas, Oil, Oil, People, Philosophy, Photos, Politics, Resources, Reviews, Security, Transportation, Video, War, Weapons, Welfare | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

 

drone_

Mike Maden

mike maden

Obama defends US drone attacks

Peter Singer: Drone Warfare

The Morality of Drone Warfare

DRONE WARS, PART ONE: THE DRONE LANDSCAPE

DRONE WARS, PART TWO: THE DRONE ECONOMY

DRONE WARS, PART THREE: THE DRONE MORALITY

Drone Boom Why Drones Aren’t Just for Dropping Bombs Anymore

Drone Laws Restrict Civilian UAV’s but allow Government

Rise of the Drones(full documentary)HD

RISE OF THE DRONES – NOVA (full documentary)

The Costs of Drone Warfare – Documentary

Richard Clarke – U.S. Drone Program Under Obama “Got Out of Hand”

EVERYONE needs to see this! Drone Strikes

Top 10 Drones in the world

ex CEO Colin Guinn is ALIVE, Files legal Injunction against DJI Innovations

 

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

The Men Who Killed Kennedy — Fact and Fiction — Kennedy Must Be Killed — Videos

Posted on January 6, 2014. Filed under: American History, Blogroll, Books, Business, College, Communications, Crime, Culture, Diasters, Economics, Education, Employment, Federal Government, Federal Government Budget, Fiction, Fiscal Policy, government, government spending, history, Homicide, IRS, Law, liberty, Life, Links, media, Non-Fiction, People, Philosophy, Politics, Press, Psychology, Rants, Raves, Regulations, Resources, Reviews, Talk Radio, Taxes, Technology, Terrorism, Video, Wealth, Wisdom | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

jfkTHE MEN WHO KILLED KENNEDY

kennedy_must_be_killed

Kennedy Must Be Killed

As a young CIA officer, Patrick McCarthy witnesses first-hand JFK’s political immaturity and personal recklessness. When Kennedy is elected in 1960, Patrick fears that Kennedy is unprepared to lead the nation in the height of the Cold War. After the near catastrophic events of the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Patriots, a shadowy group of powerful men, decide to take action before Kennedy’s next political blunder destroys the country. Patrick’s devotion to protecting his country ensnares him in the conspiracy to assassinate the president. After the assassination, Patrick assists in orchestrating the Warren Commission cover-up. He realizes too late that he has been duped by those he trusted. Years later, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reopens the investigation and subpoenas Patrick to testify. Patrick grapples with the decision to reveal the truth-a truth which will re-write American history and destroy the reputations and fortunes of some of America’s most powerful men.

KENNEDY MUST BE KILLED chronicles the life of Patrick McCarthy from the time he arrives in postwar Washington D.C. as an idealistic, patriotic young man to that fateful day on the grassy knoll when he destroys the heart of the nation. It is a story about one man’s love for his country, love for his wife and family, and an act of betrayal that causes him to lose everything that he holds dear.

The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 1 The Coup d’Etat

The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a video documentary series by Nigel Turner that originally aired in 1988 in England with two one-hour segments about the John F. Kennedy assassination. The United States corporation, Arts & Entertainment Company, purchased the rights to the original two segments. Three one-hour segments were added in 1991. A sixth segment was added in 1995. Finally, three additional hourly segments were added by the History Channel in November 2003. The ninth segment, titled “The Guilty Men”, directly implicated Lyndon B. Johnson. Within days, Johnson’s widow, Lady Bird Johnson, more of his surviving associates, ex-President Jimmy Carter, and the lone, living Warren Commission commissioner and ex-President Gerald R. Ford immediately complained to the History Channel. They subsequently threatened legal action against Arts & Entertainment Company, owner of the History Channel. “The Guilty Men” segment was completely withdrawn by the History Channel. Also during the series, French prisoner Christian David named Lucien Sarti as one of three French criminals hired to carry out the assassination of Kennedy, when he was interviewed by author Anthony Summers. This claim is one of the most strongly investigated theories presented on the show.

The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 2 The Forces of Darkness

The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 3 The Cover-Up

The Men Who Killed Kennedy: Part 4 The Patsy

The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Part 5

The Men Who Killed Kennedy, Part 6

The Men Who Killed Kennedy – Part 7 – The Smoking Guns

The Men Who Killed Kennedy – Part 8 – The Love Affair

The Men Who Killed Kennedy – Part 9 – The Guilty Men

The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a video documentary series by Nigel Turner that originally aired in 1988 in England with two one-hour segments about the John F. Kennedy assassination. The United States corporation, Arts & Entertainment Company, purchased the rights to the original two segments. Three one-hour segments were added in 1991. A sixth segment was added in 1995. Finally, three additional hourly segments were added by the History Channel in November 2003. The ninth segment, titled “The Guilty Men”, directly implicated Lyndon B. Johnson. Within days, Johnson’s widow, Lady Bird Johnson, more of his surviving associates, ex-President Jimmy Carter, and the lone, living Warren Commission commissioner and ex-President Gerald R. Ford immediately complained to the History Channel. They subsequently threatened legal action against Arts & Entertainment Company, owner of the History Channel. “The Guilty Men” segment was completely withdrawn by the History Channel. Also during the series, French prisoner Christian David named Lucien Sarti as one of three French criminals hired to carry out the assassination of Kennedy, when he was interviewed by author Anthony Summers. This claim is one of the most strongly investigated theories presented on the show.

  • The Men Who Killed Kennedy

The Men Who Killed Kennedy is a United Kingdom ITV video documentary series by Nigel Turner about the John F. Kennedy assassination. Originally broadcast in 1988 in two parts (with a subsequent studio discussion), it was rebroadcast in 1991 re-edited to three parts with additional material, and a fourth episode added in 1995. The addition of three further episodes in 2003 caused great controversy, particularly in the final episode implicating Lyndon Johnson, and the withdrawal of these additional episodes.

Broadcast history and critical response

1988 to 2003

The Men Who Killed Kennedy began with two 50-minute segments originally aired on 25 October 1988 in the United Kingdom, entitled simply Part One and Part Two. The programmes were produced by Central Television for the ITV network, and was followed three weeks later with a studio discussion on the issues titled The Story Continues, chaired by broadcaster Peter Sissons.

The original broadcast was controversial in Britain. The episodes identified three men as the assassins of Kennedy as three men, deceased drug trafficker Lucien Sarti and two living men. All three were later revealed to have strong alibis: Sarti was undergoing medical treatment in France, another was in prison at the time, and the third had been in the French Navy. One of the two living men threatened to sue, and Central Television’s own subsequent investigation into the allegations revealed they were “total nonsense”. Turner justified his failure to interview one of the accused on the grounds that the individual was “too dangerous”. Turner was censured by the British Parliament. An unsuccessful attempt was made to revoke the franchise of Central Television under British laws against broadcasting inaccuracies, but the Independent Broadcasting Authority did force Central Television to produce a third episode dedicated to the false allegations, aired November 16, 1988, which was later referred to as a “studio crucifixion” of Turner and his inaccuracies. This was the first time the IBA had taken such an action.[2]

The United States corporation, Arts & Entertainment Company, purchased the rights to the original two segments. In 1989, the series was nominated for a Flaherty Documentary Award. In November 1991, the series was re-edited with additional material and divided into three 50-minute programmes, which were also shown by ITV on consecutive nights. An additional episode appeared in 1995. The series typically aired in November every year and from time to time during the year.

2003 onwards

In November 2003, three additional segments (“The Final Chapter”) were added by the History Channel, entitled, respectively, “The Smoking Guns”, “The Love Affair” and “The Guilty Men”.

“The Love Affair” focussed on the claims of Judyth Vary Baker to have been Lee Harvey Oswald‘s lover in 1963, and to have worked with Oswald and others to develop a cancer-causing biological weapon as part of a CIA plan to assassinate Fidel Castro.[3][4]

The third of these additional segments – “The Guilty Men” – was based substantially on the book Blood, Money & Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K by Barr McClellan.[5] The book and the episode directly implicates former U. S. President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) and its airing in 2003 created an outcry among Johnson’s surviving associates, including Johnson’s widow, Lady Bird Johnson, journalistBill Moyers, Jack Valenti (longtime president of the Motion Picture Association of America), Jimmy Carter, and the last-living (at the time of the outcry) Warren Commission member Gerald R. Ford. These Johnson supporters lodged complaints of libel with the History Channel, and subsequently threatened legal action against Arts & Entertainment Company, owner of the History Channel. The History Channel responded by assembling a panel of three historians, Robert Dallek, Stanley Kutler, and Thomas Sugrue. On a program aired April 7, 2004, titles “The Guilty Man: A Historical Review,” the panel agreed that the documentary was not credible and should not have aired. The History Channel issued a statement saying, in part, “The History Channel recognizes that ‘The Guilty Men’ failed to offer viewers context and perspective, and fell short of the high standards that the network sets for itself. The History Channel apologizes to its viewers and to Mrs. Johnson and her family for airing the show.” The channel said it would not show the episode again. Author Barr McClellan, on whose work the episode was largely based, complained that he had tried to cooperate with the reviewing historians to discuss his evidence with them, and had been ignored.[5][6]

Malcolm Liggett, a retired economics professor, sued A&E regarding the episode “The Smoking Guns,” which claimed Liggett was involved in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Liggett and A&E reached a settlement, which required that a letter by Liggett be read on the show History Center.[7]

David Browne of Entertainment Weekly described the documentary as “well-researched, but still farfetched”.[8] Addressing “The Guilty Men” episode, Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal called it a “primitive piece of conspiracy-mongering” and wrote that “…the documentary’s ever deepening mess of charges and motives is never less than clear about its main point — that Lyndon Johnson personally arranged the murder not only of the president, but also seven other people, including his own sister.”[9]

In a letter to the chief executives of the three parent companies of A & E Networks, — Victor F. Ganzi of the Hearst Corporation, Michael D. Eisner of Disney, and Robert C. Wrightof NBC — former United States President Gerald Ford described the allegations as “the most damaging accusations ever made against a former vice president and president in American history.”[10]

Episode list

The first two episodes were followed by “The Story Continues” (16 November 1988), a critical studio discussion about them. The final episode was followed by a critical review, “The Guilty Men: A Historical Review.” (7 April 2004).

  1. “The Coup D’Etat” (25 October 1988)
  2. “The Forces Of Darkness” (25 October 1988)
  3. “The Cover-Up” (20 November 1991)
  4. “The Patsy” (21 November 1991)
  5. “The Witnesses” (21 November 1991)
  6. “The Truth Shall Set You Free” (1995)
  7. “The Smoking Guns” (2003)
  8. “The Love Affair” (2003)
  9. “The Guilty Men” (2003)

References

  1. Jump up^ WorldCat, The men who killed Kennedy : the definitive account of American history’s most controversial mystery
  2. Jump up^ Holland, Max. “The British JFK Producer Who Brought Shame on the History Channel”. Kennedy Assassination Home Page. Retrieved 6 December 2013.
  3. Jump up^ John C. McAdams, Should We Believe Judyth Baker?, Marquette University
  4. Jump up^ Judyth Vary Baker, “Judyth Baker Responds to Critics”, archived at John C. McAdams‘ website at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/sboard.htm
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b Reuters, 12 April 2004, “History Channel Pulls JFK Conspiracy Show”
  6. Jump up^ Bruce Weber, “History Channel Apologizes“, New York Times, April 7, 2004
  7. Jump up^ Grace Murphy, “History Channel, Vero man reach settlement in JFK allegations”, Fort Pierce Tribune, March 19, 2005
  8. Jump up^ Browne, David (November 20, 1992). “The Men Who Killed Kennedy (1992)”. EW.com. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved January 28, 2013.
  9. Jump up^ Rabinowitz, Dorothy (February 19, 2004). “Character Assassination”. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 4, 2013.
  10. Jump up^ Weber, Bruce (February 5, 2004). “Moyers and Others Want History Channel Inquiry Over Film That Accuses Johnson”. The New York Times (New York). Retrieved March 7, 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Killed_Kennedy

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

MLA Style Tutorials — Videos

Posted on November 15, 2013. Filed under: Blogroll, Book, Books, College, Communications, Computers, Constitution, Diasters, Education, Employment, government spending, High School, Language, People, Philosophy, Politics, Rants, Raves, Talk Radio, Tutorials, Video, Wisdom, Writing | Tags: , , , , , |

MLAPoster09

MLA_Cheat_Sheet

mla_example-1mla-sample-research-paper

Color_Guide

mla_article

Purdue OWL: MLA Formatting – The Basics

Purdue OWL: MLA Formatting: List of Works Cited

Using Purdue OWL as MLA and Bibliography resource

MLA in Three Minutes

MLA Tutorial #1: Basic Paper Formatting

MLA Tutorial #2: Basic Citation Format

MLA Tutorial #3: Works Cited Page Formatting

MLA Tutorial #4: Web Citations

MLA Tutorial #5: Citing Research

MLA Tutorial #6: In-Text Citations

MLA Tutorial #7: Punctuating In-Text Citations

Citing with MLA

Quoting vs. Paraphrasing – MLA Style

MLA Style Essay Format – Word Tutorial

MLA Citation Format, Part 1–Put Your Papers & Essays in Perfect MLA Style

Writing a Research Paper and Using In-text Citations

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Breaking News — Tom Clancy — Rest In Peace — Photos — Videos

Posted on October 2, 2013. Filed under: American History, Ammunition, Blogroll, Bomb, Book, Books, Communications, Culture, Diasters, Dirty Bomb, Drones, Employment, Entertainment, Federal Government, Fiction, Foreign Policy, Games, government spending, history, IRS, Islam, Language, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, Movies, Music, Nuclear, People, Philosophy, Photos, Pistols, Politics, Psychology, Rants, Raves, Resources, Reviews, Rifles, Security, Strategy, Talk Radio, Taxes, Unemployment, Video, War, Wealth, Weapons, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Wisdom | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

Tom Clancy And General Zinni Promote "Battle Ready"

clancy_books

the_hunt_for_red_October

Author-Tom-Clancy

orl-tom-clancy-1998-

 CLANCY-smoking

all_tom_clancy_books

Tom Clancy11

Author Tom Clancy dies at 66

Best-selling Author Tom Clancy Dead at 66

Author Tom Clancy, master of the modern day thriller, dead at 66

 

VIDEO – Worldwide Trend Topic Tom Clancy’s Dead WorldWideTT

US author Tom Clancy dies aged 66

Archive Tom Clancy on prophetic 9 11 plot

Tom Clancy Dead Tom Clancy dies in Baltimore age 66 Author Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 1947-2013

Tom Clancy Dead Tom Clancy dies in Baltimore age 66 Author Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 1947 2013

9/11 Tom Clancy Coverage of the WTC 7 Collapse CNN 5 35 PM 9 11 2001

Politika (1997) – Tom Clancy’s Fictional Interview on Boris Yeltsin

Tom Clancy on Government

Tom Clancy – Greek Island Interview – SSN – 1996

Tom Clancy, Dead or Alive: Discussion w/ ‘Chuck’ A. Horner, retired Air Force General

Tom Clancy – OP Center (Full movie)

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist – All Cutscenes | Movie [HD]

The Hunt For Red October (1990) Trailer.flv

The Hunt for Red October (1/9) Movie CLIP – Another Possibility (1990) HD

The Hunt for Red October (2/9) Movie CLIP – Ryan’s Plan (1990) HD

The Sum of All Fears (1/9) Movie CLIP – Everyone Has Opinions (2002) HD

The Sum of All Fears (2/9) Movie CLIP – I Can’t Tell You That (2002) HD

The True Story The Hunt For Red October

Tom Clancy – Wiki Article

Published on May 21, 2013

Thomas Leo “Tom” Clancy, Jr. is an American author who is best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines that are set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games which bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes, although he did not actually work on them himself. His name is also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders. He is Vice Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs, as well as a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles.

Personal life

Clancy was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland, graduating with the class of 1965. He then attended Loyola College in Baltimore, graduating in 1969. Before making his literary debut, he spent some time running an independent insurance agency. This agency thrived for a few years before joining a group of investors.

Clancy and his first wife Wanda married in 1969, separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated in December 1996. Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997, which became final in January 1999.

In 1993, Tom Clancy joined a group of investors that included Peter Angelos and bought the Baltimore Orioles from Eli Jacobs. In 1998, he reached an agreement to purchase the Minnesota Vikings, but had to abandon the deal because of the divorce settlement cost.

On June 26, 1999, Clancy married freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, whom he had met in 1997. Llewellyn is the daughter of J. Bruce Llewellyn, and a family friend of Colin Powell, who originally introduced the couple to each other.

In 2008, the French video game manufacturer Ubisoft purchased the use of Clancy’s name for an undisclosed sum. It has been used in conjunction with video games and related products such as movies and books. Based on his interest in space, and his investment in the launch vehicle company Rotary Rocket, in 2007 Clancy was interviewed for the documentary film Orphans of Apollo.

Political views

Tom Clancy has been a lifetime supporter of conservative and Republican causes in America. His books bear dedications to conservative political figures, most notably Ronald Reagan. A week after the September 11, 2001 attacks, on The O’Reilly Factor, Clancy stated that left-wing politicians in the United States were partly responsible for September 11 due to their “gutting” of the Central Intelligence Agency. Clancy has also associated himself with General Anthony Zinni, a critic of the George W. Bush administration, and has been critical of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as well.

On September 11, 2001, Clancy was interviewed by Judy Woodruff on CNN. During the interview, he asserted “Islam does not permit suicide” (see Islam and suicide). Among other observations during this interview, Clancy cited discussions he had with military experts on the lack of planning to handle a hijacked plane being used in a suicide attack and criticized the news media’s treatment of the United States Intelligence Community. Clancy appeared again on PBS’s Charlie Rose, to discuss the implications of the day’s events with Richard Holbrooke, New York Times journalist Judith Miller, and Senator John Edwards, among others. Clancy was interviewed on these shows because his 1994 book Debt of Honor included a scenario where a disgruntled Japanese character crashes a fueled Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol dome during a State of the Union address, killing the President and most of Congress. This plot device bore strong similarities to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Clancy has been a Life Member of the National Rifle Association since 1978.

Bibliography

The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears have been turned into commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck as Clancy’s most famous fictional

Tom Clancy, Best-Selling Novelist of Military Thrillers, Dies

at 66

By JULIE BOSMAN

Tom Clancy, whose complex, adrenaline-fueled military novels made him one of the world’s best-selling and best-known authors, died on Tuesday in a hospital in Baltimore. He was 66.

Ivan Held, the president of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, his publisher, did not provide a cause of death.

Mr. Clancy’s books were successfully transformed into blockbuster Hollywood films, including “Patriot Games,” “The Hunt for Red October“ and “Clear and Present Danger.”

His next book, “Command Authority,” is planned for publication on Dec. 3.

Seventeen of his novels were No. 1 New York Times best sellers, including his most recent, “Threat Vector,” which was released in December 2012.

Mr. Clancy was an insurance salesman when he sold his first novel, “The Hunt for Red October,” to the Naval Institute Press for only $5,000.

That publisher had never released a novel before, but the editors were taken with Mr. Clancy’s manuscript. They were concerned, however, that there were too many technical descriptions, so they asked him to make cuts. Mr. Clancy made revisions and cut at least 100 pages.

The book took off when President Ronald Reagan, who had received a copy, called it was “my kind of yarn” and said that he couldn’t put it down.

After the book’s publication in 1985, Mr. Clancy was praised for his mastery of technical details about Soviet submarines and weaponry. Even high-ranking members of the military took notice of the book’s apparent inside knowledge.

In an interview in 1986, Mr. Clancy said, “When I met Navy Secretary John Lehman last year, the first thing he asked me about the book was, ‘Who the hell cleared it?’ “

David Shanks, a Penguin executive who worked with Mr. Clancy for decades, called him “a consummate author, creating the modern-day thriller, and one of the most visionary storytellers of our time.”Born to a middle-class family in Baltimore on April 12, 1947, Mr. Clancy skipped over the usual children’s literature and became obsessed by naval history from a young age, reading journals and books whose intended audience was career military officers and engineering experts.

He absorbed details of submarine warfare, espionage, missile systems and covert plots between superpowers.

He attended Loyola College in Baltimore, where he majored in English, and graduated in 1969. While Mr. Clancy harbored ambitions to join the military, even joining the Army R.O.T.C., he was told that he was too nearsighted to qualify.

Mr. Clancy began working at a small insurance agency in rural Maryland that was founded by his wife’s grandfather.

After “The Hunt for Red October” was published, Mr. Clancy’s fame was fairly instant. Frequently posing for photographs in darkened aviator sunglasses, jeans and holding a cigarette, Mr. Clancy spoke of the laserlike focus required to succeed.

“I tell them you learn to write the same way you learn to play golf,” he said. “You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired — it’s hard work.”

He followed “The Hunt for Red October” with “Red Storm Rising“ in 1986, “Patriot Games” in 1987, “The Cardinal of the Kremlin“ in 1988 and “Clear and Present Danger” in 1989.

The critical reception to his novels was gushing from the start. Reviewing “Red Storm Rising” in The New York Times in 1986, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote that the book “far surpassed” Mr. Clancy’s debut novel.

“Red Storm Rising” is a “superpower thriller,” he wrote, “the verbal equivalent of a high-tech video game.” (Mr. Clancy would eventually venture into video games, which were easily adapted from his novels.)

Other critics questioned the unwaveringly virtuous nature of many of Mr. Clancy’s heroes, particularly his protagonist Jack Ryan.

“All the Americans are paragons of courage, endurance and devotion to service and country,” Robert Lekachman wrote in the Times in 1986. “Their officers are uniformly competent and occasionally inspired. Men of all ranks are faithful husbands and devoted fathers.”

Mr. Clancy was frequently accused of using classified information in his novels, a claim that amused him. While he spent time on military bases, visited the Pentagon and dined with high-level military officials, he insisted that he didn’t want to know any classified information.

“I hang my hat on getting as many things right as I can,” Mr. Clancy once said in an interview. “I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real, that’s the spooky part.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/books/tom-clancy-best-selling-novelist-of-military-thrillers-dies-at-66.html?_r=1&

Tom Clancy

Thomas Leo “Tom” Clancy, Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013)[1][2] was an American author best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines that are set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games which bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes. His name was also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders. He was Vice Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs, as well as a part-owner, of the Baltimore Orioles.

Literary career

Clancy’s fiction works, The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears, have been turned into commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck as Clancy’s most famous fictional character Jack Ryan, while his second most famous character John Clark has been played by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. All but two of Clancy’s solely written novels feature Jack Ryan or John Clark.

The first NetForce novel was adapted as a television movie, starring Scott Bakula and Joanna Going. The first Op-Center novel was released to coincide with a 1995 NBC television mini-series of the same name (Tom Clancy’s Op-Center) starring Harry Hamlin and a cast of stars. Though the mini-series did not continue, the book series did, but it had little in common with the first mini-series other than the title and the names of the main characters.

With the release of The Teeth of the Tiger, Clancy introduced Jack Ryan’s son and two nephews as main characters; these characters continue in his three latest novels, Dead or Alive, Locked On and Threat Vector.

Clancy wrote several nonfiction books about various branches of the U.S. armed forces (see non-fiction listing, below). Clancy also branded several lines of books and video games with his name that are written by other authors, following premises or storylines generally in keeping with Clancy’s works. These are sometimes referred to by fans as “apostrophe” books; Clancy did not initially acknowledge that these series were being authored by others, only thanking the actual authors in the headnotes for their “invaluable contribution to the manuscript”.

By 1988, Clancy had earned $1.3 million for The Hunt for Red October and had signed a $3 million contract for his next three books.[3] By 1997, it was reported that Penguin Putnam Inc. (part of Pearson Education) would pay Clancy $50 million for world rights to two new books, and another $25 million to Red Storm Entertainment for a four-year book/multimedia deal.[4] Clancy followed this up with an agreement with Penguin’s Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with the ABC television miniseries Tom Clancy’s Net Force aired in the fall/winter of 1998. The Op-Center universe has laid the ground for the series of books written by Jeff Rovin, which was in an agreement worth $22 million, bringing the total value of the package to $97 million.[4]

In 1993, Clancy joined a group of investors that included Peter Angelos and bought the Baltimore Orioles from Eli Jacobs. In 1998, he reached an agreement to purchase theMinnesota Vikings, but had to abandon the deal because of the divorce settlement cost.

On June 26, 1999, Clancy married freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, whom he had met in 1997.[5] Llewellyn is the daughter of J. Bruce Llewellyn, and a family friend ofColin Powell, who originally introduced the couple to each other.[6]

In 2008, the French video game manufacturer Ubisoft purchased the use of Clancy’s name for an undisclosed sum. It has been used in conjunction with video games and related products such as movies and books.[7] Based on his interest in space, and his investment in the launch vehicle company Rotary Rocket, in 2007 Clancy was interviewed for the documentary film Orphans of Apollo.

Political views

A longtime holder of conservative and Republican views, Clancy’s books bear dedications to American conservative political figures, most notably Ronald Reagan. A week after theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks, on The O’Reilly Factor, Clancy claimed that left-wing politicians in the United States were partly responsible for September 11 due to their “gutting” of the Central Intelligence Agency.[6]

In recent years, Clancy associated himself with General Anthony Zinni, a critic of the George W. Bush administration, and has been critical of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as well.[8]

On September 11, 2001, Clancy was interviewed by Judy Woodruff on CNN.[9] During the interview, he asserted “Islam does not permit suicide” (see Islam and suicide). Among other observations during this interview, Clancy cited discussions he had with military experts on the lack of planning to handle a hijacked plane being used in a suicide attack and criticized the news media’s treatment of the United States Intelligence Community. Clancy appeared again on PBS‘s Charlie Rose, to discuss the implications of the day’s events with Richard Holbrooke, New York Times journalist Judith Miller, and Senator John Edwards, among others.[10] Clancy was interviewed on these shows because his 1994 book Debt of Honor included a scenario where a disgruntled Japanese character crashes a fueled Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol dome during an address by the President to a joint session of Congress, killing the President and most of Congress. This plot device bore strong similarities to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Clancy was also a Life Member of the National Rifle Association since 1978.[11]

Personal

Clancy was born in Baltimore, Maryland.[1] He attended Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland, graduating with the class of 1965.[1] He then attended Loyola College (now Loyola University) in Baltimore, graduating in 1969.[1] Before making his literary debut, he spent some time running an independent insurance agency.

Clancy and his first wife Wanda married in 1969, separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated in December 1996.[12] Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997,[13] which became final in January 1999.[14] In 1999, Clancy married freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn.[15]

Clancy died October 1, 2013, after a brief illness at Johns Hopkins Hospital, near his Baltimore home. He was 66 and no cause of death was released. He is survived by four children and his second wife, Alexandra Marie Llewellyn.[16]

Bibliography

Works, by year of publication

The Hunt for Red October (1984)
Clancy’s first published novel. CIA analyst Jack Ryan assists in the defection of a respected Soviet naval captain, along with the most advanced ballistic missile submarine of the Soviet fleet. The movie (1990) stars Alec Baldwin as Ryan and Sean Connery as Captain Ramius. Captain Mancuso is introduced here. Nearly every book after has Mancuso in ever increasing command of U.S. submarine forces.
Red Storm Rising (1986)
War between NATO and USSR. The basis of the combat game of the same name, this book is not a member of the Ryan story series (although the protagonist of the story has many similarities with Jack Ryan). Cowritten with Larry Bond.
Patriot Games (1987)
Patriot Games chronologically predates the first book that Clancy wrote, The Hunt for Red October. Jack Ryan foils an attack in London on the Prince and Princess of Wales by the “Ulster Liberation Army”. The ULA then attacks Ryan’s Maryland home while he is hosting the Prince and Princess for dinner. The movie stars Harrison Ford as Ryan and Samuel L. Jackson as Robby Jackson.
The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
The sequel to “The Hunt for Red October.” First appearance of John Clark and Sergey Golovko. Ryan leads a CIA operation which forces the head of the KGB to defect. Other elements include anti-satellite lasers and other SDI-type weapons, and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Major Alan Gregory is introduced here. (He appears later, updating SAMsoftware in The Bear and the Dragon). Colonel Bondarenko also is introduced here. (He appears in later books offering advice to Golovko in “Executive Orders” and commanding the Russian Army defenses against China in its sequel “The Bear and the Dragon”.)
Clear and Present Danger (1989)
The President authorizes the CIA to use American military forces in a covert war against cocaine producers in Colombia. The operation is betrayed. Ryan meets John Clark as they lead a mission to rescue abandoned soldiers. Domingo “Ding” Chavez (Clark’s protege in later novels) is one of the rescued soldiers. The 1994 film stars Harrison Ford as Ryan, Willem Dafoe as Clark, and Raymond Cruz as Chavez.
The Sum of All Fears (1991)
Arab terrorists find a nuclear weapon that had been lost by Israel, and use it to attack the United States. This nearly triggers a war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, due to the incompetence of the new President and his mistress with an anti-Ryan agenda. Ryan intervenes to avert the war. The 2002 film stars Ben Affleck as Ryan and Liev Schreiber as Clark, and changes the identity and motivation of the terrorists to neo-Nazis.
Without Remorse (1993)
Without Remorse takes place during the Vietnam War, when Jack Ryan was a teenager. Ex-SEAL John Clark (then John Kelly) fights a one-man war against drug dealers in Baltimore, attracting the attention of Jack’s father Emmett, a Baltimore police detective. He also helps plan and execute a raid on a prisoner-of-war camp in North Vietnam. Clark joins the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Debt of Honor (1994)
A secret cabal of extreme nationalists gains control of Japan (having acquired some nuclear weapons), and start a war with the U.S. Ryan, now National Security Advisor, and Clark and Chavez, agents in Japan, help win the war. The Vice President resigns in a scandal, and the President appoints Ryan to replace him. A vengeful, die-hard Japanese airline pilot then crashes a jetliner into the U.S. Capitol during a joint session of Congress attended by most senior U.S. government officials, including the President. Ryan thus becomes the new President through succession.
Executive Orders (1996)
This is the immediate sequel to Debt of Honor. President Ryan survives press hazing, an assassination attempt, and a biological warfare attack on the United States. Clark and Chavez trace the virus to a Middle Eastern madman, and the U.S. military goes to work.
SSN: Strategies for Submarine Warfare (1996)
Follows the missions of USS Cheyenne in a future war with China precipitated by China’s invasion of the disputed Spratly Islands. Also not a Ryan universe book, SSN is actually a loosely connected collection of “scenario” chapters in support of the eponymous video game.
Rainbow Six (1998)
Released to coincide with the video game of the same name. John Clark and Ding, who is now Clark’s son-in-law, lead an elite multi-national anti-terrorist unit that combats a worldwide genocide attempt by eco-terrorists. Ryan is the U.S. President and only mentioned or referred to as either ‘The President’ or ‘Jack’.
The Bear and the Dragon (2000)
War between Russia and China. Ryan recognizes the independence of Taiwan, Chinese police officers kill a Roman Catholic Cardinal, and the American armed forces help Russia defeat a Chinese invasion of Siberia.
Red Rabbit (2002)
In the early 1980s, CIA analyst Ryan aids in the defection of a Soviet officer who knows of a plan to assassinate Pope John Paul II.
The Teeth of the Tiger (2003)
Jack Ryan’s son, Jack Ryan, Jr., becomes an intelligence analyst, and then a field consultant, for The Campus, an off-the-books intelligence agency with the freedom to discreetly assassinate individuals “who threaten national security”, following the end of the Jack Ryan Sr. presidential administration. This book of the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy introduces Ryan’s son and two nephews as heirs to his spook-legacy.
Dead or Alive (2010, with Grant Blackwood)
The story picks up where The Teeth of the Tiger left off with Jack Ryan, Jr. and The Campus trying to catch a terrorist known as “The Emir”.
Against All Enemies (2011, with Peter Telep)
A terrorist bombing in Pakistan wipes out Max Moore’s entire CIA team. As the only survivor, the former Navy SEAL plunges deeper into the treacherous tribal lands to find the terrorist cell, but what he discovers there leads him to a much darker conspiracy in an unexpected part of the globe — the United States/Mexico border.
Locked On (Dec 2011, with Mark Greaney)
While Jack Ryan Jr. trains to become a field operative within The Campus, his father campaigns for re-election as President of the United States. A devout enemy of Jack Sr. launches a privately funded vendetta to discredit him, while a corrupt Pakistani general has entered into a deadly pact with a fanatical terrorist to procure nuclear warheads.
Search and Destroy (July 2012, with Peter Telep) (Cancelled)
Threat Vector (Dec 2012, with Mark Greaney)
Jack Ryan has only just moved back into the Oval Office when he is faced with a new international threat. An aborted coup in the People’s Republic of China has left President Wei Zhen Lin with no choice but to agree with the expansionist policies of General Su Ke Quiang. They have declared the South China Sea a protectorate and are planning an invasion of Taiwan. The Ryan administration is determined to thwart China’s ambitions, but the stakes are dangerously high as a new breed of powerful Chinese anti-ship missiles endanger the US Navy’s plans to protect the island. Meanwhile, Chinese cyber warfare experts have launched a devastating attack on American infrastructure.
Command Authority (December 2013, with Mark Greaney)
There is a new strong man in Russia but his rise to power is based on a dark secret hidden decades in the past. The clue to the mystery lies with a most unexpected source, President Jack Ryan.[17]

Novels not in a series

Jack Ryan/John Clark universe chronology

In the order in which they occur in the storyline (and when they occur):

  • Without Remorse (1969–70, 1973 – Starts late 1969, in Hurricane Camille’s aftermath. Continues the following spring, in 1970. Epilogue is titled “February 12, 1973”) Ryan briefly appears in this novel.
  • Patriot Games (1982, based on a reference to Ryan’s age, which is 31 at the beginning of the novel. This roughly fits with a reference to the Princess of Wales’s first child being a baby and a few months old, Prince William was born in 1982) Discrepancies include the reference to a van having a likely year of manufacture of 1984.
  • Red Rabbit (circa spring of 1982, based on references to living Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Suslov, both of whom died in 1982 (although Suslov died already in January of that year), as well as Jack Ryan, Jr.’s age in the novel, 6 months) Discrepancies with the estimate of 1982 include frequent references to “Transformers” which did not appear until 1984 and the fact that the Orioles played the Phillies in the World Series in 1983, not to mention that the World Series is played in the Fall, not the Spring. Also a reference to “Coke Classic” which did not debut until the summer of 1985.
  • The Hunt for Red October (1984)
  • The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1986) – “The first chapter is set in January and states that Ryan is 35 years old. It also has references to the other books set earlier. For example the Foleys have been in Moscow for almost four years. The book must begin (not including prologue which was set end of previous year) in January 1986.

Starting with the following novel, the series becomes distinctly different from real history as noted below.

  • Clear and Present Danger (1988) The book refers to Jack’s age as 40.
  • The Sum of All Fears (1990–1991) — Israel partially cedes sovereignty over Jerusalem to the Vatican and Saudi Arabia, and the city becomes a United Nations protectorate policed by Swiss Guards. Residents of Jerusalem can choose between either Vatican, Israeli or Islamic judicial law. Denver is devastated by a terrorist nuclear explosion. The book occurs after the Persian Gulf War and before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is implied that both events occur at the same time in the Ryan universe as in actual history (of the Soviet Union dissolution), 1991. In the earlier chapters it states that it had almost been two Novembers since President Fowler had been elected, making the beginning set in 1990. Interestingly, the video game Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six puts the atomic detonation in Denver as having occurred in 1989.
  • Debt of Honor (1995–1996) — The U.S. and Russia destroy all of their ballistic missiles. After crippling the U.S. economy and becoming a nuclear power, Japan invades and takes the Marianas Islands; the United States and Japan fight a brief war, which the Japanese lose (they are subsequently denuclearized); an embittered Japanese pilot and proponent of the war crashes a 747 into the United States Capitol Building immediately after Ryan’s confirmation vote for the Vice President, killing most of the House andSenate, the President, all nine Supreme Court justices, the senior military establishment (including the JCS), and most of the Cabinet; Ryan is left in charge of a gutted government. The end of the book occurs eleven months before 1997 presidential inauguration. Of interest, but not crucial to the plot of this or further books is that North and South Korea were said to be unified at some point between The Sum of All Fears and this book.
  • Executive Orders (1996) — Saddam Hussein is assassinated; Iran and Iraq merge forming the United Islamic Republic; the UIR launches a biological attack on the U.S. using the Ebola virus; the United States launches the Second Persian Gulf War against the UIR and defeats them; the Ayatollah is killed in a smart-bomb attack by the U.S.
  • Rainbow Six (1999–2000) – events are based on the Sydney Olympics held in 2000, RAINBOW – an elite counter-terrorist force – is created and engages terrorists acrossEurope. Ecoterrorists plan to create a genetically-enhanced virus based on Ebola and cancer cells, which they plan to use to wipe out much of the world’s population.
  • The Bear and the Dragon (2002) — Russia is admitted to NATO; China and Russia fight a major war, in which the U.S. intervenes on its NATO ally’s side. It implies that theBritish Prime Minister is Tony Blair. Ryan has won re-election as president (2001). He resigns before the 2004 election making Robby Jackson president.
  • The Teeth of the Tiger (2006, based on the age of Jack Ryan, Jr.) The U.S. is now engaged in a global war on terrorism, in response to the September 11 attacks, which occurred in the Ryan universe as they did in the real world. It is mentioned that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq occurred in the Ryan universe continuity, and that the Jerusalem Treaty signed in The Sum of All Fears has failed as Israelis and Palestinians went back to fighting each other.
  • Dead or Alive (2007, based on Jack Ryan’s announcement that he would run against Ed Kealty for President “in the coming year”) — The Umayyad Revolutionary Council (the Ryan universe version of Al-Qaeda) and its leader “The Emir” (based on Osama bin Laden) plan a string of major attacks on the U.S. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, as in our timeline, and President Kealty is in the process of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. A character also explicitly refers to the date as May 2010, in the process of decoding encrypted messages, but this must be seen as a contradiction, as Ed Kealty is president and is only president for one term. In accordance with the Jack Ryan continuity, Kealty must be president in the term 2005-2009.
  • Locked On (2008, based on Jack Ryan Sr.’s campaign for re-election). Jack Ryan is running for president again. Since it is only possible for Kealty to serve one term per the rules of the Constitution, that term must be from 2005 to 2009. The election happens in this book, too, making it only possible that the events take place in 2008. Jack Ryan Sr.’s opponent, Edward Kealty, tries to dig up dirt on him by going after John Clark. Meanwhile, a renegade Pakistani general steals nuclear weapons from his country and delivers them to rebel Dagestani forces. In the middle of all this, Jack Ryan Jr. and The Campus try to prevent the use of the lethal weapon and come to help Clark.
  • Threat Vector (2012). Ryan has been sworn in as president of the United States after having been elected the previous year. It also states that the events of this novel happen six months after the previous novel.
  • Command Authority To be released 12-3-2013

Op-Center universe

  1. Op-Center (1995)
  2. Mirror Image (1995)
  3. Games of State (1996)
  4. Acts of War (1996)
  5. Balance of Power (1998)
  6. State of Siege (1999)
  7. Divide and Conquer (2000)
  8. Line of Control (2001)
  9. Mission of Honor (2002)
  10. Sea of Fire (2003)
  11. Call to Treason (2004)
  12. War of Eagles (2005)

Net Force universe

  • Net Force (1999)
  • Hidden Agendas (1999)
  • Night Moves (1999)
  • Breaking Point (2000)
  • Point of Impact (2001)
  • CyberNation (2001)
  • State of War (2003)
  • Changing of the Guard (2003)
  • Springboard (2005)
  • The Archimedes Effect (2006)

Net Force Explorers universe

Power Plays series

  • Politika (novel, 1997)
    • Politika (video game) by Red Storm Entertainment
    • Politika (board game)
  • ruthless.com (novel, 1998)
    • ruthless.com (video game, 1998) by Red Storm Entertainment
  • Shadow Watch (novel, 1999) by Jerome Preisler
    • Shadow Watch (video game, 1999) by Red Storm Entertainment
  • Bio-Strike (novel, 2000) by Jerome Preisler
  • Cold War (novel, 2001) by Jerome Preisler
  • Cutting Edge (novel, 2002) by Jerome Preisler
  • Zero Hour (novel, 2003) by Jerome Preisler
  • Wild Card (novel, 2004) by Jerome Preisler

Ghost Recon universe

EndWar universe

H.A.W.X universe

  • Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X by Grant Blackwood as David Michaels

Non-fiction

Guided Tour

Study in Command

Other

  • The Tom Clancy Companion — Edited by Martin H. Greenberg — Writings by Clancy along with a concordance of all his fiction novels, detailing characters and military units or equipment.

Video games

In 1996, Clancy co-founded the video game developer Red Storm Entertainment and ever since he has had his name on several of Red Storm’s most successful games. Red Storm was later bought by publisher Ubisoft Entertainment, which continued to use the Clancy name, though the extent of Clancy’s actual involvement with creation of the games and development of intellectual properties, if any, was unclear. This game series includes:

Board games

Achievements and awards

References

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Clancy, Tom (October 31, 1997). “alt.books.tom-clancy”. groups.google.com. Retrieved 2012-03-20.
  2. Jump up^ A few sources, such as Who’s Who and “Tom Clancy”. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Retrieved March 20, 2012., give his birth date as March 12, 1947. He died Wednesday October 2, 2013.
  3. Jump up^ Anderson, Patrick (1 May 1988). “King of the Techno-thriller”. New York Times Magazine.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b Quinn, Judy (24 August 1997). “$100M Mega-Deals for Clancy”. Publishers Weekly 243 (34).[dead link]
  5. Jump up^ “Alexandra Llewellyn, Tom Clancy,” The New York Times, June 27, 1999.
  6. ^ Jump up to:a b “Tom Clancy”. NNDB. 1999-06-26. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  7. Jump up^ Mitchell, Richard (2008-03-25). “Clancy name bought by Ubisoft, worth big bucks. SOURCE: www.chatwave.in”. Xbox360fanboy.com. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  8. Jump up^ Paperback Writer, The New Republic, May 25, 2004.
  9. Jump up^ 23 October 2007. “Tom Clancy on Sept 11 2001 & WTC 7 Collapse”. Youtube.com. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  10. Jump up^ “An hour about the 9/11 attacks”. Charlierose.com. 2001-09-11. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  11. Jump up^ LaPierre, Wayne (1994). Guns, Crime, and Freedom. HarperPerennial. p. xiii.ISBN 978-0-06-097674-3.
  12. Jump up^ Schindehette, Susan (15 June 1998). “Storm Rising”. People Magazine 49 (23): 141.
  13. Jump up^ Jones, Brent (27 August 2008). “Reconsider Clancy case ruling”. Baltimore Sun.
  14. Jump up^ “Case No. 04-C-03-000749 OC”. Circuit Court for Calvert County. Retrieved March 23, 2012.
  15. Jump up^ Kennedy, John R. (2013-10-02). “Author Tom Clancy dead at 66 – Okanagan”. Globalnews.ca. Retrieved 2013-10-02.
  16. Jump up^ “Tom Clancy, author of ‘Hunt for Red October’ and ‘Patriot Games,’ dead at 66”. NY Times. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  17. Jump up^ “Command Authority by Tom Clancy”. Barnesandnoble.com. Retrieved 2013-10-02.
  18. Jump up^ Ryan, Michael E. (12 April 2000). “Shadow Watch”. Gamespot. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
  19. Jump up^ Totilo, Stephen (May 12, 2011). “Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Will Rival the Shooter Heavyweights, but is Getting Far Out of the Way”. Kotaku. Retrieved May 12, 2011.
  20. Jump up^ “Tom Clancy’s Politika | Board Game”. BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  21. Jump up^ “Washington Post”. Washington Post. 1997-06-01. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  22. Jump up^ “Rensselaer Magazine: Summer 2004: At Rensselaer”. Rpi.edu. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  23. Jump up^ “TC Post: Clancy Speaks Again Briefly”. Clancyfaq.com. 2000-06-25. Retrieved 2010-02-28.

External links

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

J.R. Moehringer — The Tender Bar — Sutton — Videos

Posted on July 22, 2013. Filed under: Art, Blogroll, Books, Communications, Culture, Entertainment, Fiction, Language, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, media, People, Photos, Psychology, Rants, Raves, Video, Wealth, Wisdom | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

the-tender-bar

j_r__moehringer

bookstore

Boy Raised By a Bar

Audio Book Review: The Tender Bar: A Memoir by J.R. Moehringer (Author, Narrator)

Amazon chats with “Sutton” author J.R. Moehringer

J.R. Moehringer on Sutton and the Role of Banks on Culture

BEA 2012 – J.R. Moehringer – Adult Book & Author Breakfast

jrm_sutton

jrm

suttono

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Brad Thor — Hidden Order — The Federal Reserve System — Videos

Posted on July 15, 2013. Filed under: Banking, Blogroll, Books, Business, Communications, Economics, Federal Government, Fiction, government spending, History of Economic Thought, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Macroeconomics, media, Monetary Policy, Money, People, Philosophy, Photos, Politics, Radio, Raves, Talk Radio, Video, Wealth, Wisdom | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

hidden_order

Brad-Thor

Brad Thor on Lou Dobbs discussing Hidden Order

Brad Thor on Latest Book ‘Hidden Order’ Possible Fed Reserve Scandal – Fox & Friends – 7-8-13

Hidden Order book by author Brad Thor on air with Glenn Beck, Federal Reserve Scot Harvath

#1 New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor returns with his hottest and most action-packed thriller yet! And don’t miss FREE FALL: A Prelude to Hidden Order, available for free download now!

The most secretive organization in America operates without any accountability to the American people. Hiding in the shadows, pretending to be part of the United States government, its power is beyond measure.

Control of this organization has just been lost and the future of the nation thrust into peril.

When the five candidates being considered to head this mysterious agency suddenly go missing, covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath is summoned to Washington and set loose on the most dangerous chase ever to playout on American soil.

But as the candidates begin turning up murdered, the chase becomes an all-too-public spectacle, with every indicator suggesting that the plot has its roots in a shadowy American cabal founded in the 1700s.

With the United States on the verge of collapse, Harvath must untangle a web of conspiracy centuries in the making and head off the greatest threat America has ever seen.

This is thriller writing at its absolute best, where the stakes have never been higher, nor the line between good and evil so hard to discern.

G Edward Griffin Creature From Jekyll Island A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

The Creature from Jekyll Island | G. Edward Griffin

G. Edward Griffin: The Collectivist Conspiracy

 

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Vince Flynn — May He Rest In Peace — Videos

Posted on June 20, 2013. Filed under: Airplanes, American History, Blogroll, Bomb, Books, Business, Communications, Crime, Culture, Diasters, Economics, Employment, Energy, Entertainment, Federal Government, Fiction, Foreign Policy, government spending, history, Islam, Islam, Language, Law, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, media, Movies, Oil, People, Philosophy, Pistols, Politics, Psychology, Radio, Raves, Religion, Resources, Rifles, Science, Security, Ships, Talk Radio, Technology, Terrorism, Video, War, Wealth, Weapons, Wisdom | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

vince_flynn

vince-flynn

Prolific Author Vince Flynn Reportedly Dead at 47

Vince Flynn Dead at 47 After Battle with Prostate Cancer, Best Selling Author June 19, 2013)

Author Vince : Flynn dies at 47 *

Kill Shot author Vince Flynn on Imus 2/6/12

Glenn Beck’s Emotional Tribute To Friend And Author Vince Flynn, Dead at 47.

2012.11.19 – TheBlazeTV – The Glenn Beck Radio Program – Vince Flynn

Vince Flynn (THE LAST MAN) on Imus 11/12/12

Glenn Beck – November 20 2009 Pt 1

Glenn Beck – November 20 2009 Pt 2

Glenn Beck – November 20 2009 Pt 3

Vince Flynn’s first appearance with Bill O’Reilly in 2005

Vince Flynn Author of The Last Man talks with Glenn Beck on The Blaze TV

Vince Flynn on David Petraeus, Afghanistan and Mitch Rapp (Morning Joe, MSNBC)

Vince Flynn on ‘American Assassin’

Elliot In The Morning: Vince Flynn

vince-books-header

The Last Man

Related Posts On Pronk Palisades

Michael Crichton Videos–May He Rest In Peace

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Donna Tartt — The Secret History — Videos

Posted on May 18, 2013. Filed under: Blogroll, Books, College, Communications, Culture, Education, Entertainment, Fiction, Language, liberty, Life, Links, Literacy, media, People, Philosophy, Politics, Raves, Religion, Talk Radio, Video | Tags: , , , , , |

secret-historydonnatartt11

the_secret_history

donna_tartt

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

‘The Secret History’ prologue

Donna Tartt (born December 23, 1963) is an American writer and author of the novels The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002), and The Goldfinch (2013).[1] She won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend in 2003.

Early life

The daughter of Don and Taylor Tartt, she was born in Greenwood, Mississippi and raised in the nearby town of Grenada. At age five, she wrote her first poem, and she was first published in a Mississippi literary review when she was 13.

Enrolling in the University of Mississippi in 1981, she pledged to the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma. Her writing caught the attention of Willie Morris while she was a freshman. Following a recommendation from Morris, Barry Hannah, then an Ole Miss Writer-in-Residence, admitted Tartt into his graduate short story course. Following the suggestion of Morris and others, she transferred to Bennington College in 1982, meeting then-students Bret Easton Ellis and Jill Eisenstadt and studying classics with Claude Fredericks.

The Secret History

Tartt began writing her first novel, originally titled “The God of Illusions”[2] and later published as The Secret History, during her second year at Bennington. She graduated from Bennington in 1986. After Ellis recommended her work to literary agent Amanda Urban, The Secret History was published in 1992, and sold out its original print-run of 75,000 copies, becoming a bestseller. It has been translated into 24 languages.

The Secret History is set at a fictional college and concerns a close-knit group of six students and their professor of classics. The students embark upon a secretive plan to stage a bacchanal. The narrator reflects on a variety of circumstances that lead ultimately to murder within the group.

The murder, the location and the perpetrators are revealed in the opening pages, upending the familiar framework and accepted conventions of the murder mystery genre. Critic A.O. Scott labelled it “a murder mystery in reverse.”[3]

The book was wrapped in a transparent acetate book jacket, a retro design by Barbara De Wilde and Chip Kidd. According to Kidd, “The following season acetate jackets sprang up in bookstores like mushrooms on a murdered tree.”[4]

The Little Friend

The Little Friend, Tartt’s second novel, was published in October 2002. It is a mystery centered on a young girl living in the American South in the late 20th century. Her implicit anxieties about the long-unexplained death of her brother and the dynamics of her extended family are a strong focus, as are the contrasting lifestyles and customs of small-town Southerners.

The Goldfinch

In February 2013, the New York Observer announced that Tartt’s long-awaited third novel, titled The Goldfinch, was set for publication on October 22, 2013 after originally being slated for publication in September 2008.[5] The plot is described thus: ““A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and determined to avoid being taken in by the city as an orphan, Theo scrambles between nights in friends’ apartments and on the city streets,” Amazon’s description reads. “He becomes entranced by the one thing that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that soon draws Theo into the art underworld. Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America. It is a story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the enormous power of art”[6]

Other writing

In 2002, it was reported that Tartt was working on a retelling of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus for the Canongate Myth Series, a series of novellas in which ancient myths are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors.[7]

Audio

Tartt has recorded several audiobooks:

  • The Secret History
  • The Little Friend (abridgment)
  • True Grit (with afterword expressing her love of the novel)
  • Winesburg, Ohio (selection)

Bibliography

Novels

Short stories

  • “Tam-O’-Shanter”. The New Yorker April 19, 1993, p. 90.[8]
  • “A Christmas Pageant”. Harper’s 287.1723. December 1993, p. 45+.
  • “A Garter Snake”. GQ 65.5, May 1995, p. 89+.
  • “The Ambush”. The Guardian, June 25, 2005.

Nonfiction

  • “Sleepytown: A Southern Gothic Childhood, with Codeine.” Harper’s 286, July 1992, p. 60-66.
  • “Basketball Season.” The Best American Sports Writing, edited and with an introduction by Frank Deford. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
  • “Team Spirit: Memories of Being a Freshman Cheerleader for the Basketball Team.” Harper’s 288, April 1994, p. 37-40.

Awards

References

  1. ^ http://observer.com/2013/02/donna-tartts-long-awaited-thir-novel-will-be-published-this-year/
  2. ^ Fein, Esther B. (1992-11-16). “”The Marketing of a Cause Celebre” – The New York Times”. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
  3. ^ Scott, A.O. “Harriet the Spy,” New York Times, November 3, 2002.
  4. ^ “Jacobs, Alexandra. “Kidd Keeps Knopf Cool, Wrapping Books Gorgeously” New York Observer, Nov. 6, 2005″. Observer.com. 2005-11-06. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
  5. ^ http://observer.com/2013/02/donna-tartts-long-awaited-thir-novel-will-be-published-this-year/
  6. ^ http://observer.com/2013/02/donna-tartts-long-awaited-thir-novel-will-be-published-this-year/
  7. ^ “”Independent”: “Whatever happened to Donna Tartt?””. Arlindo-correia.org. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
  8. ^ Tartt, Donna (1993-04-19). “Fiction: Tam-O’-Shanter” (abstract). The New Yorker. Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  9. ^ The Little Friend (Reference for both awards)

Sources

Listen to

External links

The Secret History

The Secret History, the first novel by Mississippi-born writer Donna Tartt, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. A 75,000 print order was made for the first edition (as opposed to the usual 10,000 order for a debut novel), and the book became a bestseller.

Set in New England, The Secret History tells the story of a closely knit group of six classics students at a small, elite Vermont college, Hampden College, similar in many respects to Bennington College (in Bennington, Vermont) where Tartt was a student from 1982 to 1986.

The story is an inverted detective story, not a Whodunit but a Whydunit.

One of the six students is the story’s narrator, Richard Papen, who reflects, years later, on the situation that led to a murder within the group, the murder being confessed at the outset of the novel but the events otherwise revealed sequentially. In the opening chapter, as the reader is introduced to Papen, we are told of the death of student Edmund “Bunny” Corcoran, although few details are given initially. The novel explores the circumstances and lasting effects of Bunny’s death on the academically and socially isolated group of Classics students of which he was a part.

The impact on the students is ultimately destructive, and the potential promise of many young lives is lost to circumstance. The story parallels, in many ways, a Greek tragedy with fate dictating the very circumstances that lead to an escalation of already fermenting issues.

Synopsis

As the story opens, Richard leaves Plano, California, where he is generally unhappy, for Hampden College in Vermont. His approach to his background is in keeping with the contrast of aestheticism and literary beauty, as opposed to harsh reality, that continues throughout the novel. He misleads others about his background as necessary, replacing his mediocre working-class childhood with a fabricated and more glamorous one of boarding schools and wealth.

After moving to Vermont, Richard attempts to continue his study of Ancient Greek, only to be denied admittance to the Greek class, as Classics professor Julian Morrow limits his enrollment to a tiny hand-picked coterie of students. Richard becomes obsessed with the small group, after observing them around campus, and eventually manages to ingratiate himself with the group by helping them solve a Greek grammar problem as they study in the college library. Soon after, armed with advice from the students on how to impress Julian, he meets with him once more and is finally admitted to the select Classics tutorial.

The group includes fraternal twins Charles and Camilla Macaulay, who are charming but secretive, as well as Francis Abernathy, whose secluded country home becomes a sanctuary for the group. Two students become the central focus of the story: the linguistic genius Henry Winter, an intellectual with a passion for the Pali canon and Plato, and the back-slapping Bunny Corcoran, a slightly bigoted jokester more comfortable reading Sax Rohmer‘s Fu Manchu, particularly if someone else has bought him a copy.

Their relationship, already considered odd by Richard, becomes even more mystifying when Bunny announces that he and Henry will be spending the winter break together in Italy. This, despite the fact that Henry appears barely tolerant of Bunny and that Bunny is unable to afford such a lavish holiday himself. In fact, it is Henry who is footing the bill for the trip. To avoid unraveling his fabricated past, Richard takes a low-paying job on the college campus and spends the winter break in an unheated warehouse. He nearly dies from exposure and pneumonia but is rescued and taken to the hospital by Henry, who has returned early from the trip to Italy.

When the rest of the group returns from winter break, Richard notes that the relationships between them and Bunny have become even more strained. Ultimately, Richard learns the truth from Henry and Francis: during a Bacchanal that both Richard and Bunny were excluded from, Henry had inadvertently killed a local farmer. Bunny, having been suspicious for some time, uncovers the truth during the trip to Italy after reading some of Henry’s private notes, and has blackmailed the group ever since. The group, led by Henry, begin to view Bunny as the weak link who threatens to reveal their secret, and Bunny’s penchant for playing on his friends’ fears and insecurities does little to assuage their concern.

No longer able to meet Bunny’s demands and fearing that Bunny will report the matter to the police, the group resolves to kill Bunny. Henry forms several plots to accomplish such, and one of the plans is finally put into motion after Bunny tells Richard of the killing of the farmer in a drunken rant. The group confronts Bunny while he is hiking, with Henry pushing him into a ravine to his death.

The remainder of the novel focuses on the aftermath of Bunny’s death, especially the collapse of the group, the psychological strains of remorse borne by the individual members and their efforts to maintain secrecy as investigators and other students develop theories about Bunny’s disappearance. The supporting cast of other students includes loquacious drug user Judy Poovey, a reader of “those paranoia books by Philip K. Dick.”

Charles develops a drinking problem and becomes increasingly abusive towards his sister. Francis begins to suffer panic attacks. Julian discovers the evidence in the form of a pleading letter sent to him by Bunny, imploring him to help: “You’re the only one who can.” Julian never reports the crime but instead leaves the college.

With the group splintered, the members deal with their crime, to a large extent, in isolation. Henry begins living and sleeping with Camilla, which drives Charles further into the grip of his barely controlled alcoholism. Henry is deeply upset by Julian’s departure, seeing it as an act of cowardice and hypocrisy. The plot reaches a climax when Charles, jealous of Henry and now a full-blown alcoholic, barges into Camilla and Henry’s hotel room and tries to kill Henry with Francis’ Beretta. In the struggle that follows, Henry gets hold of the gun as the inn-keeper pounds on the door. Aghast, the others are not sure whom he intends to kill. Instead, Henry kisses Camilla for a final time, and shoots himself. It seems that Henry wants to uphold the principles that he feels Julian has betrayed. With Henry’s suicide, the group disintegrates: Francis, a homosexual, is forced by his rich grandfather to marry a woman; Camilla takes care of her grandmother and ends up isolated; Charles runs from rehab with a married woman; Richard, the narrator, becomes a lonely academic whose love for Camilla is unrequited. Henry’s death is described as having cut the cord between them and set them all adrift. The book ends with Richard recounting a strange dream where he meets Henry in a tall atrium, and doesn’t know how to voice everything he feels about what has happened. Finally, he settles on asking him “Are you happy here?”; Henry replies, “Not particularly. But you’re not very happy where you are, either”, and walks away, leaving Richard as aimless as ever.

Themes

Michiko Kakutani (New York Times) commented, “In The Secret History, Ms. Tartt managed to make… melodramatic and bizarre events (involving Dionysian rites and intimations of satanic power) seem entirely plausible.” Because the author introduces the murder and those responsible at the outset, critic A.O. Scott labeled it “a murder mystery in reverse.” [2]

On a deeper level, highlighted by many literary references and allusions, the novel undertakes a complex analysis of truth versus beauty, aesthetics versus justice, social constraints compared to the desire for liberation, and an examination of the relationships that exist behind social structure, particularly relationships of power and control. Early on, the question arises: “Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.” This theme continues throughout the novel as Richard is repeatedly confronted with the separation of literary and artistic beauty as he would capture and report it, compared to reality as it unfolds.

Cross-references

Bret Easton Ellis‘s novel The Rules of Attraction is set at Camden College, a fictional liberal arts college in northeastern New Hampshire. In many ways, Camden mirrors Ellis’ alma mater, Bennington College, and Hampden College, the setting of Tartt’s The Secret History. Both books contain cross-references to each other’s storylines and characters. Tartt mentions the suicide of a freshman girl in passing, while Ellis repeatedly mentions a group of classics majors who “dress like undertakers” and are suspected of staging pagan rituals and slaying farmers in the countryside.

References

  1. ^ “The Marketing of a Cause Celebre” – The New York Times
  2. ^ Scott, A.O. “Harriet the Spy,” New York Times, November 3, 2002.

Listen to

External links

Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )

Next Entries »

Liked it here?
Why not try sites on the blogroll...