---

In honor of all the little witches and ghosts out there here is a tribute to Halloween ... Might as well include the articulated Biff Mitchell who is running a promotion on eBay in which he is auctioning off the privilege to be a murdered character in next novel. (He has 16 bids and is up to $330.01) Also Czech out Notes From Underground -- A film by Gary Walkow I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. With those terrifying words begin one of the masterpieces of world literature ... Healthy writers take time out from books to blog

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Long River: A Brief History Of Supertitles
In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, a harrowing account of near death in the Peruvian Andes. It got good reviews but, only a modest success, it was soon forgotten. Then, a decade later, a strange thing happened. Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, another book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, which became a publishing sensation. Suddenly Touching the Void started to sell again.
Amazon created the Touching the Void phenomenon by combining infinite shelf space with real-time information about buying trends and public opinion. The result: rising demand for an obscure book.
This is not just a virtue of online booksellers; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for the media and entertainment industries, one that is just beginning to show its power.
• Now Touching the Void outsells Into Thin Air more than two to one [Amazon Interest soars for books by new Nobel laureate ]
• · What Good Is The Nobel? Certainly, great writers deserve wide recognition, but does the Nobel Prize for Literature really come close to delivering such immortality? The Nobel Prize, currently under fire - Some books and writers you just can't believe existed - Jaroslav Seifert (1984)
• · · You read it here first! I could not resist the urge to dwell on why certain Pictures and Names Matter, Even On Double Dragon ; Ach, the Dangerous Double Full Monty Exclusive to Media Dragon Grazers; [ Truth Is Almost As Strange... Code River v Cold River - Scholastic has announced a big 100,000-copy second printing of Cornelia Funke's DRAGON RIDER, published last month, with 250,000 copies in print]
• · · · Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick's classic political satire of the nuclear age, has aged well, and the hilarious yet terrifying premise of the film - that a wacky collection of incompetent statesmen and insane warmongers could destroy the world in a fit of pique may be the most potent reminder we have of the uncertainty of Cold War reality
• · · · · Lionel Trilling made his reputation as a critic at the dark and bloody crossroads where literature and politics meet. Whatever you can do as a man, you can win no wars as an artist. In The Prague Orgy (1985), Zuckerman traveled behind the Iron Curtain in pursuit of a manuscript of Yiddish short stories, and, once there among the writers and political dissidents, rejected the sexual advances of Olga in favor of listening to the story of her life - I am only ears Philip Roth and his History Lessons [That our political leaders have failed so thoroughly to imagine a solution only compounds the problem; yet this failure creates an opening, as well as a series of pitfalls, for the novelist brave enough to take our political dilemma on.]
• · · · · · Miralles in Wonderland Before he died, Spanish architect Enric Miralles designed Scotland's brash new parliament building