Everything we learnt from Anthony Hopkins’s tell-all memoir
From his estranged daughter to battles with alcohol, We Did Okay Kid makes for melancholic reading
Estrangement from his daughter
Hopkins’s already rocky marriage with his first wife, Petronella Barker, took a plunge when Hopkins returned from a long day of filming in Scotland. They immediately got into a blazing row: “I have never been physically violent, but in that moment I was filled with such revulsion that I became afraid for both myself and her.” Their daughter, Abigail, was 14 months at the time. He kissed her goodnight before leaving his family, never to return; he and Barker divorced not much later, in 1972.After conquering his alcoholism, Hopkins tried to repair his relationship with Petronella and Abigail, flying from his new home in Los Angeles to London in 1977. But it was to no avail: “The meeting was awkward… They didn’t want to be there. Throughout the meal, they keep catching each other’s eyes and making faces. Abigail never seems able to forgive me for leaving the family when she was a baby.”
Anthony Hopkins’s Beckettian Memoir
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Harmful cholesterol levels cut in half with one-time gene editing drug in early trial.
Helen Garner: ‘Writers need to have their arse kicked around the block’
The Australian author on being ‘old and crabby’, her aversion to Virginia Woolf, tangoing with Clive James, and the diaries that won her this year’s Baillie Gifford prize
Best of the 21st century ?
287,990 votes were cast in Australian broadcaster ABC Radio National's poll to determine the top 100 Books of the 21st century, and they've now announced the resilts; see also the whole list of 100.
Not many are works in translation. And not many of these are under review at the complete review, but a few are:
- 1 imaginary one Wishful Cold War River
- 21. Atonement by Ian McEwan
- 31. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- 34. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- 52. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
- 86. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- 95. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
- 97. True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
- 99. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Patrick White Literary Award | QSSI Translation Prize shortlist
Patrick White Literary Award
They've announced the winner of this year's Patrick White Literary Award, an A$20,000 author prize, and it is David Brooks (no, not, dear god, The New York Times guy); see the official press release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) or the report at Books + Publishing.
See also his official site or a 2011 Q & A at Poetry International.
The Patrick White Literary Award was established by the great Nobel laureate; it has a solid list of previouys winners that includes Christina Stead (1974), Thea Astley (1989), Elizabeth Harrower (1996), Gerald Murnane (1999), and Janette Turner Hospital (2003).
Rogue Goodreads Librarian Edits Site to Expose ‘Censorship in Favor of Trump Fascism’
404 media [no paywall] –
“On Friday morning, Goodreads users who wanted to read reviews of the werewolf romance Mate by Ali Hazelwood were confronted by the cover of the new Eric Trump book Under Siege. One of the site’s volunteer moderators had gone rogue and changed Mate’s cover, added the subtitle “Goodreads Censorship in Favor of Trump,” and altered Mate’s listing into an explanation of why.
To hear them tell it, Goodreads was removing criticism of Trump’s book from the site. “Silencing criticism of political figures—especially those associated with authoritarian movements—helps normalize and strengthen those movements,” the post that replaced Mate’s description said. “When we let powerful people’s books be protected from criticism, we give up the right to hold power accountable.”
Goodreads employs a volunteer staff of “Librarians” who act as moderators for the site and have the power to make changes to the listings. One of these librarians altered the titles, pictures, and blurbs of several popular books including the Mate,the Resse Witherspoon penned thriller Gone Before Goodbye, and the Nicholas Sparks bestseller Remain. The changes were up for a few hours before Goodreads caught on and fixed the listings.. A Goodreads spokesperson confirmed that a Librarian had altered the covers and listings for the books. “We’re aware of unauthorized edits made by a volunteer librarian to several book listings. All titles affected by the unauthorized edits have been restored to their correct information, and the librarian no longer has an account on Goodreads,” the spokesperson said. In response to questions about reviews for the Eric Trump book, the spokesperson told 404 Media that Goodreads “has systems in place to detect unusual activity on book pages and may temporarily limit ratings and reviews that don’t adhere to our reviews and community guidelines. In all cases, we enforce clear standards and remove content and/or accounts that violate these guidelines.”…
