Ron Howard prepare his new series
22 Jul 2011 01:28:47
The future of the ambitious screen adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series is looking shaky, after it was reported that Hollywood studio Universal has decided not to proceed with the project.
King's eight novels and accompanying spin-off comic books, written over the three decades from 1982, were planned to be converted into three big-screen films and two TV series. Powerhouse director-producer team Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are already well advanced with the project, having commis... Read Full Story
Harry Potter - the discussion is continuous
22 Jul 2011 01:26:34
Ralph Fiennes, who portrayed the noseless warlock with the unhealthy cruciatus curse habit, told Newsweek that he got under the skin of Voldemort by imagining him as a lonely, damaged soul.
"Young Voldemort was an orphan and denied any kind of parental affection or love, so he's been an isolated figure from a very young age," Fiennes said. "But I always think there has to be the possibility of good in someone, too. It might have been eroded, repressed, suppressed or somehow distorted within him... Read Full Story
Jewtopia written by Bryan Fogel will be filmed
22 Jul 2011 01:24:24
The popular American stage play Jewtopia will be turned into a feature film starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, it has been announced.
Jewtopia, written by Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson, is a comedy about two twentysomething men, one gentile and one Jewish, who both want to date women from each other's religion.
The play originally opened in LA in 2003, with Fogel and Wolfson in the two lead roles. It then went on to a successful off-Broadway run, closing in 2007 after three and a half years.
Fogel ... Read Full Story
More information about John Speed's acient atlas
21 Jul 2011 01:18:26
Prints of John Speed's beautiful maps are to be found in living rooms all over the world he carefully documented four centuries ago.
But a unique atlas bringing together maps made by the great British cartographer of the 16th and 17th centuries may fetch a record-breaking price at auction on Wednesday.
Speed's atlas contains two works, the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain and A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World. This version of the atlas was published and hand-coloured after... Read Full Story
Who is David Bowie and what does he know?
21 Jul 2011 01:17:27
Call them the Big Five. Game hunters have their wish-list of trophy animals, and rock music has its own – the elite group of rock stars yet to be bagged for publishing deals. This month, after HarperCollins snapped up the autobiography of Pete Townshend of the Who after a bidding war, publishers' sights are firmly set on the few remaining major talents to have held back from a book deal. Paul McCartney, Elton John, Robert Plant and Bruce Springsteen are on that list, but at the top for many in t... Read Full Story
The Jane Austen's novel was sold for huge money
21 Jul 2011 01:16:31
The only remaining privately owned fragment of a Jane Austen novel in the author's own handwriting has sold at auction in London for nearly £1m, three times its estimate.
The heavily corrected manuscript from The Watsons, written in about 1804, was acquired by the Bodleian library at Oxford for £993,250 at Sotheby's. The hammer went down to a round of applause, since the lot had been estimated to reach £200,000-£300,000.
The 68 pages, hand-cut and bound into 11 small booklets by the author, ar... Read Full Story
Ancient books are more expensive than precious metals jewellery
20 Jul 2011 01:40:38
A £9m appeal has been launched by the British Library to buy the oldest intact book in Europe, a palm-sized leather-bound copy of the gospels buried 1,300 years ago in the coffin of Saint Cuthbert.
The Cuthbert Gospel, on loan to the library since 1979, is regarded as of such importance that the National Heritage Memorial Fund has raided its reserves to offer a £4.5m grant, half the purchase price and the largest single acquisition grant in the library's history. The Art Fund and the Garfield W... Read Full Story
A little story about Geoffrey Hill
20 Jul 2011 01:38:28
Geoffrey Hill, the poet who won the title of professor of poetry at Oxford University after scandal forced his predecessor out of the post, is now locked in competition again, shortlisted for the prestigious £10,000 Forward prize for poetry against former winners David Harsent and Sean O'Brien, the only poet who has won the prize three times, as well as the 2006 prize for the best single poem.
Hill, considered one of the finest living writers both as poet and critic, became Oxford's 44th poetry... Read Full Story
For all Harry Potter's fans
20 Jul 2011 01:37:33
Harry Potter fans have read the books, seen the films and could now – if they have the funds and inclination – even own the childhood home that may well have inspired JK Rowling to create the magical world of Hogwarts.
Church Cottage in Tutshill, near Chepstow, a former schoolhouse built in the gothic style in the mid-19th century, is on the market for around £400,000.
Its attractive features would appeal to many buyers, and include a pretty garden, flagstone and stripped wood floors and what ... Read Full Story
Edna O'Brien and Colm Tóibín created the list especially for Frank O'Connor prize
16 Jul 2011 17:18:59
Irish literary heavyweights Edna O'Brien and Colm Tóibín have both made the shortlist for the Frank O'Connor prize, the world's richest award for a short story collection.
The award-winning Irish writers will be competing with two first-time authors, Canadian Alexander MacLeod and American Suzanne Rivecca, for the €35,000 (£26,500) prize, as well as with former winner Yiyun Li and American novelist Valerie Trueblood, picked for her first short-story collection.
"It's a bumper year for Irish wr... Read Full Story
Zimbabwean authors are also write genius books and becomes winners of different prizes
16 Jul 2011 17:17:31
Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo has won major African literary award the Caine prize for her short story about a starving gang of children from a shanty town.
Bulawayo's Hitting Budapest tells the story of six children in Zimbabwe, one of them pregnant with her grandfather's baby, and the journey they make to steal guavas in a rich area. Chair of the Caine prize's judges, the Libyan novelist Hisham Matar, said the story's language "crackles".
"Right now I'd die for guavas, or anything for ... Read Full Story
Russuian classic literature - remembrance
16 Jul 2011 17:15:37
Editor Peter Sekirin has worked with previously untranslated letters, diaries and essays by Chekhov's family, colleagues and friends for his book Memories of Chekhov, which has just been published. Peter Gnedich, a novelist and playwright, recalls in the book how Chekhov once recounted a trip he made to visit Tolstoy in Gaspra.
"He was bedridden due to illness," Chekhov told Gnedich, according to an extract from Sekirin's documentary biography published in the New York Review of Books. "Among o... Read Full Story
