Garcia Marquez Archives

The archives of the late Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez have just been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin. Collections of other notable authors are also housed at this research library and museum, including those of Hemingway, Lessing, Luis Borges, Faulkner, and T.S. Eliot. In the article linked below, University bibliographer Jose Montelongo nicely sums up the author's literary contribution:  

"Heir and admirer of literary innovators like Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, García Márquez experimented with intricate narrative structures, with lush and winding long sentences, with the clash of the ordinary and the impossible," said José Montelongo, interim Latin American bibliographer at the university's Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection. "He was a master of the short form in novellas that read like Greek tragedies set in the Caribbean, as well as a consummate long-distance literary runner, master of the sprawling, genealogic novel in which everything fits, including history and crime and love and miracles. Above all, he was an intoxicating stylist with the primal instincts of a storyteller. As one literary critic has put it, García Márquez's imagination was so powerful and original that he will be remembered as a creator of myths, a Latin American Homer."

Click on this link to learn more about the Garcia Marquez archive and about the author.

Purple Hibiscus Takes Root

Here are several interesting websites to explore for more information about our latest author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  Included among them is her TED talk of 2012. Please note that Bernardsville Public Library has all her novels and her short story collection on our shelves!

http://www.vibevixen.com/2013/12/10-things-to-know-about-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie/

http://www.l3.ulg.ac.be/adichie/index.html

Book to Movie, Duh

"A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail" is to become a movie starring Robert Redford, Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson. Link here for the article.

"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to."

In October, Bernardsville Public Library will host a month-long community reading event known as One Book Bernardsville.  A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson has been selected as our One Book.  To become better acquainted with the author, please view the enjoyable video posted below.

Bill Bryson’s 1989 book, The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America, begins with the words “I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”  That opening line also kicks off this video about the author’s childhood.  Aired in the United Kingdom on Melvyn Bragg’s The South Bank Show in 2006 (South Bank Show – Bill Bryson itv.com/southbank,) the video features Bryson’s recent return visit to his hometown to discuss what it was like growing up in Iowa. Included in it are numerous charming clips from home movies his father took.  Bryson’s mother appears in it as well as high school friend, “Katz,” who accompanied Bryson on part of his Appalachian Trail hike. That attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail is recounted in our One Book Bernardsville selection, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, to be read and discussed by the community during the month of October. Please click here for information about A Walk in the Woods and about the One Book Bernardsville events our library has planned throughout October. Now, enjoy the video! 

Today's Read

Jonathan Lethem has an interesting website to explore. In it, he provides several published interviews, one of which is linked here.  Motherless Brooklyn, his childhood, and his writing style are all discussed. Feel free to learn more about him and his other books at this website: http://www.jonathanlethem.com/index.html.

Cooking Up Trouble

Here's a recent review of Nick Reding's book Methland, which we will discuss on Saturday, July 12.  The author's website for the book also provides a number of reviews including this New York Times review from 2009.  Further, there is an interview with the author and biographical information to explore.

Finished Reading?

For those who have finished our next book, What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty, you might want to look through the reviews and discussion questions posted by LitLovers on the link below.

http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/8588-what-alice-forgot-moriarty

Some Secrets Revealed

Refer to this 30 minute CBC-Radio Canada interview between Alice Munro and Peter Gzowski for some background insights into the germination of Ms. Munro's story ideas in her collection, Open Secrets. For a short clip about this charming 2013 Nobel Prize winning author, link here.

Adventurous Writing

In Robert Sullivan's Author Statement for the NEA, he notes that "I especially love researching the history of people, places and things that are situated in close proximity to swamps, dumps, alleys, tidal areas, brackish waters, or really water of any kind. Alongside a river, for instance, especially a river near a city, you can get a good idea of what people have done in the past and what they are currently up to."  For him, writing is an adventure, indicated by the subject matter of his previous books, The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures at the Edge of a City (Anchor), and A Whale Hunt: Two Years with the Makah and their Canoe (Scribner).  For an in-depth interview with our author, refer to this 2011 article in The Awl. Mr. Sullivan also maintains an active Twitter feed, @RESullivanJr.

The "Dickens of Detroit"

To learn more about Elmore Leonard's biography and books, scroll through his website. There you'll even find the video of a local news broadcast featuring his home, which was up for sale following his death in 2013. (Fascinating tidbit: the house had ivy-patterned wallpaper.)  The website also posts recent news about the television show "Justified" which is based on one of his short stories. 

You may also refer to The Atlantic's article for more information about other Leonard stories that were made into movies. Further, The Guardian's article discussing Elmore Leonard's body of work offers high praise for this great American novelist. "The beauty of Leonard's novels can be achieved at the expense of any kind of moral judgment. It's often been said that it is hard to tell who the good guys and who the bad guys are in his novels. Sometimes, as in Freaky Deaky, you only work out who you might have been rooting for when you see who is left alive at the end. In a world of unbridled criminality, the criminal who carries out his robbery or murder with style and wit is the object of our admiration. Above all, the allure of intelligence and of articulacy carries the day: we tend to like the man who speaks best and most wittily in Leonard, the one who says "motherfucker" with the best timing."

Two Books In An Hour

For background information on the Japanese-American experience in American internment camps, please refer to the following PBS link for the documentary, "Children of the Camps:" http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/index.html.  This site has many resources for you to explore as you wish. 

For author biography and information, here's Julie Otsuka's webpage - http://www.julieotsuka.com/ - as well as The New York Times book review of The Buddha in the Attic: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/books/review/the-buddha-in-the-attic-by-julie-otsuka-book-review.html?_r=0.