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Bret Easton Ellis

Books

The Most Notorious Literary Party Animals

By Emily Temple on

It’s almost the weekend, and we can bet that means you have at least one enticing soirée on your horizon. But will you party as hard as your favorite author? Literary history is filled with notoriously hard-partying writers, from the decadent Fitzgeralds, flouncing about in public fountains with their clothes on, to the permissive Beat poets, flouncing about in mixed company with their clothes off. Romantic, perhaps, but keep in mind that often the most reckless partiers paid for their indulgences in their health or creative ability, so revel with care. Click through to read our list and take some cues (or some warnings, more likely) from ten of the most notorious party animals in literary history, and let us know if we missed your favorite bon vivant or sultry bacchant in the comments. … Read More

Books

10 Books That Would Make Great Theme Parties

By Emily Temple on

We’ve been having a lot of fun with hypothetical party planning over here at Flavorpill — in the past few weeks, we’ve considered which films, albums, and TV shows would make the best theme parties. But since a party isn’t a party without Jay Gatsby’s jazzy blessing and a little bit of Shakespearean place-swapping, we had to round out the experiment with a list of books that we think would inspire the best costumes, decor, and conversation when mixed with a cocktail or two. Click through to check out the theme parties we’d throw around our favorite books, and let us know which novel you’re longing to celebrate in soiree form in the comments. … Read More

Books

What Google Image Search Thinks About Famous Authors

By Emily Temple on

Recently, we got a huge kick out of Slacktory’s post on what Google Image Search suggests you add to celebrities’ names when you search for them. Inspired, we took to the Internet, trying out the experiment with the names of our own favorite celebrities — who are, ahem, mostly dead authors. As you might expect, we had mixed results: some of the results are right on the money, as succinctly meaningful as Humbert Humbert’s description of his mother’s death “(picnic, lightning),” and others are a little more questionable, or perhaps just slightly random. After all, this is a survey of our collective consciousness as filtered through technology, so you can’t expect too much. Click through to check out what Google thinks you should add to the names of famous authors, and if you happen to go off and do your own experimenting, let us know what you come up with in the comments. … Read More

Pop Culture

10 of Pop Culture's Most Charming Sociopaths

By Sarah Bellman on

Over the weekend Bret Easton Ellis went on one of his patented tweet binges, this time musing about writing a sequel to American Psycho set in the present day. Apparently he has already made 15 pages of notes. Among his tweeted ideas for the update: “Patrick would talk about Adele and Kanye and KATY PERRY because ‘Firework’ is his favorite song… and then he kills Katy Perry’s trainer…” While we’re skeptical about the need to trot Bateman out of retirement (have you seen the direct-to-video disaster that was American Psycho II: All American Girl?), we decided this was a great excuse to revisit a few of our favorite pop-culture sociopaths. Add to our twisted list in the comments! … Read More

Books

Could Bret Easton Ellis be Writing an 'American Psycho' Sequel?

By Emily Temple on

Over the last few hours, Bret Easton Ellis has been tweeting up a storm about ideas for an American Psycho sequel, which would be pretty exciting. We’re not getting our hopes up, because so far the story seems a little all over the place, but according to his tweets, Ellis plans to “spend the weekend… Read More

Books

A Musical Overview of Bret Easton Ellis’ Oeuvre

By Emily Temple on

Though cross-pollination between books and music is an age-old trend, cult novelist Bret Easton Ellis fills his books with more music references than anyone else we can think of, and his works are inextricably woven into the pop culture they portray — partially because it seems like every time Ellis makes a music reference in a novel, a band is making an Ellis reference in a song. Today is Ellis’ birthday, and to celebrate, we’ve put together a master list of music mentioned throughout his entire oeuvre, complete with streaming playlists so you can fill your day with a BEE soundtrack. We had some help from the official source, but finding that insufficient, went through ourselves and picked out some more of our favorite musical moments and shout-outs throughout the novels. Of course we haven’t managed to scrape together every last reference, but you need a hump day project, right? Click through to listen to the music from Bret Easton Ellis’ entire oeuvre, and have yourself a very ’80s Wednesday. … Read More

Books

Literary Mixtape: Clay from ‘Less Than Zero’

By Emily Temple on

If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: Clay, the apathetic protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis’ first novel, Less Than Zero. … Read More

Books

10 Novels That Will Disturb Even the Coldest of Hearts

By Kathleen Massara on

[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published May 18, 2011.] Jezebel-writer Anna North’s debut novel, America Pacifica, is out today. The story centers around an impoverished teenage girl who is struggling to survive on an increasingly toxic island in the Pacific Ocean after a future Ice Age sets in and freezes the mainland. Though the writing can be a little clunky — especially with respect to class issues — North provides good lens into the many ways an aggrieved soul can turn against the world, and how difficult it is to get back our dignity once we’ve lost it. With this in mind, we decided to run a post on books that expose the darker side of humanity — a roundup of the most disturbing novels and short stories through time, if you will. … Read More

Books

Literary Mixtape: Patrick Bateman

By Emily Temple on

If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: American Psycho‘s über-fit antihero, Patrick Bateman. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds In Our Office

By Caroline Stanley on

Today at Flavorpill, we met the incredibly adorable real life versions of Timon and Pumbaa from The Lion King. We found it hard to believe that Method Man’s latest song is actually a commercial for Sour Patch Kids. We were glad to see that Bret Easton Ellis is still… Read More