There’s no polite way to say it. The star of Roberto Bolaño’s long-awaited novel, The Third Reich, is a geek — a gamer geek, to be precise. And it’s the real-world implications of his all-consuming pastime that underlie the book’s action, even as he relaxes on the beach with his beautiful girlfriend and parties into the night with new friends. The immense role gaming plays in Bolaño’s atmospheric, slow-burning novel, written before The Savage Detectives and 2666 and serialized by The Paris Review in advance of its publication last month, got us thinking about the many memorable geeks contemporary literature has given us. A selection of our favorites is after the jump; add yours in the comments. Read More »
After spotting a post on Brainpickings on these magical illustrations that Maurice Sendak created for a 1960s edition of The Velveteen Rabbit, we couldn’t resist hunting down other vintage children’s book illustrations — with wonderful results. Alongside the words of such adored authors as Beatrix Potter and Munro Leaf lay simple black-and-white sketches, vibrantly hued drawings, and eccentric portraits that serve as delightful embellishment to timeless stories. Not only do these illustrations lift the tales off of the page, but they have been a source of inspiration for artists and crafters over the past decades. Join us as we round up amazing vintage illustrations from children’s literature, and feel free to add your favorites in the comments.
If you’re like us, you were sad to read the news that Albert Uderzo is retiring after 52 years as the artist behind Asterix the Gaul. Asterix was a huge part of Flavorpill’s childhood, and the books are also those rarest of things — children’s books that adults can also enjoy. We’ve pulled together a selection of other books from our childhood that we can still enjoy in adulthood — and, in doing so, we can’t help but notice that most of them are pretty long in the tooth these days. Are kids’ books becoming less sophisticated? Or have we just missed a whole bunch now that we’re a) not children any more and b) not parents yet?
Although we were big Goosebumps fans in our elementary school years, we have to admit that we haven’t been up on R.L. Stine’s authorial activities since the early ’90s. So we were surprised, last week, when he tweeted, “I’m happy to say I’ve finished my horror novel for adults. It will be published next July.” His announcement got us thinking about how many famous children’s authors — both classic and current — have also written books for adults, with varying degrees of publicity and success. After the jump, we take a look at the more mature work of some of our favorite authors from childhood.
In an interview with Donald Sturrock, Roald Dahl once said, “I go down to my little hut, where it’s tight and dark and warm, and within minutes I can go back to being six or seven or eight again.” And that is exactly why we love Dahl — for his ability to get childhood exactly right. It’s a scary world out there, and tall people with bad facial hair and even worse attitudes tend to run the show, which makes life especially frightening to those of us who are less colossal or hirsute. In honor of the English novelist’s recent birthday, we present a group of memorable villains from his children’s stories. We suggest that you take one of the books below and hole away for a few hours, remembering what it’s like to be a kid. For more information about the English author, visit his official website, which is incredibly fun to navigate. Why not send a “glorumptious greeting e-card” to a friend?
If you’re feeling nostalgic for childhood stories, then Jayme McGowan, the creative spirit behind Roadside Projects, is the artist for you! Drawing inspiration from fables, novels and fairy tales, the Sacramento-stationed illustrator creates gorgeous, kaleidoscopic-hued 3D illustrations. For her Paper Dahls series, McGowan tears the magical worlds of Roald Dahl off the page, depicting scenes from Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and more. She has also taken on Where The Wild Things Are, dabbled in fairy tales with Little Red Riding Hood, and produced odes to Disney’s Snow White and Alice In Wonderland. Relive your adored childhood book memories after the cut.
Few headlines will draw our attention faster than “Pin-ups based on Haruki Murakami books.” Little did we know that Super Punch’s post would lead us to something even more wonderful — Portland, OR gallery Benjamin Benjamin’s Adaptation: A Show of Authors. The exhibition pairs artists with writers to create work inspired by everyone from Edgar Allen Poe and Willa Cather to Kurt Vonnegut and Roald Dahl. Click through for a glimpse at several pieces from the show, including three Murakami pin-ups by Johnny Acurso, and if you’re in the Portland area, you can find details about seeing the art in person here.
We like to think of our favorite writers as people we would get along with. So much of what attracts us to literature and philosophy is its author’s stated or implied worldview that it’s disturbing to find out that the writers we love have lived morally questionable — or even reprehensible — lives. Laura Miller examined this disappointment in a piece for Salon earlier this week, ultimately concluding that, “needing to believe that your favorite author lived in an exemplary way, embodying all the virtues of his best work, is an adolescent desire, passionate but ultimately unfair. Learning the truth is disillusioning at first, but enlightening in the end.”
In the spirit of hating the author but loving the work, we’ve rounded up a collection of great books by poets, novelist, and philosophers with unsettling biographies, featuring both writers Miller mentions and some of our own favorite scoundrels. Spoiler alert: the modernists were a pretty colorful bunch.
