I first read about Scribner’s plans to release a modified version of Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast (aff link) in this New York Times OpEd back in July, but have only now gotten around to writing about it. This story brings up a lot of questions about what publishers owe to the authors and novels they publish, especially after the author has long been deceased and can no longer speak for himself.

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I love literature, there is no doubt about that, but I don’t think I love literature enough to get it tattooed on my skin. Yet some people have done exactly that and these literary tattoos are the subject of a printed anthology that a few brave editors have decided to put together.

People get all sorts of stuff tattooed on their bodies: Everything from animals, dragons, names/pictures of children and various symbols that hold special meaning for the wearer. I even have a tattoo on my arm that I got over a decade ago when I was in the US Navy. Back then, and even now, I never considered a ‘literary’ tattoo.

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How do you turn a boring classic novel into something new and exciting? Add a bunch of brain-hungry zombies, of course. At least, that is the approach that author Seth Grahame-Smith took with his novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
(aff link). The novel takes the popular Jane Austen story and turns it upside-down with zombies.

I’m reading the book right now and find it very funny. But I should also admit that I haven’t read the original Pride and Prejudice, so I might be missing out on some of nuances of the story. Nevertheless I’m still being thoroughly entertained. You can bet that when I’m finished, I’ll write a more detailed book review here.

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Don’t get too excited. The "verdict" in question is the opinion of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens who, according to this Wall Street Journal article, says Shakespeare didn’t write all those plays and poems after all:

Justice Stevens, who dropped out of graduate study in English to join the Navy in 1941, is an Oxfordian — that is, he believes the works ascribed to William Shakespeare actually were written by the 17th earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.

This old argument is nothing new, even on this blog, where I wrote this post a while back that garnered some interesting comments (worth your time to read!).

The argument that Shakespeare didn’t write any of those plays is based on the idea that he was from a lower class family, did not have the right schooling, etc. In other words, it’s typical class warfare. But Shakespearean scholars and academics alike have pretty much debunked that myth. The fact that this same argument is coming from Justice Stevens, isn’t that surprising according to this article from the NY Daily News:

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Sometimes I’m surprised at who is also a fellow literature junkie, no matter how low a politician they might be. Case in point: Yesterday I wrote this post about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his penchant for quoting poetry during press conferences.

Well today, the Chicago Tribune caught on to his literary musings in this piece, and even seeks to throw in some analysis of the Governor’s taste in poetry:

The governor’s identification with Tennyson’s hero might also raise eyebrows: In Greek mythology, Ulysses was less noted for honor than for craftiness, the ancient equivalent of wink-and-nod politics. Of him, Tennyson wrote: "I mete and dole/unequal laws unto a savage race."

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I don’t write a lot of rants on this blog, but this will be one of the few times when I express some strong sentiments. Tonight, as I was winding down from a hard day at work, I was watching television and a movie preview came on. A few seconds into the preview, I realized it was for the new movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" a classic F. Scott Fitzgerald short story.

When the movie was first announced, I wrote about it in this post. Now the movie is gaining a lot more attention, as well as the story itself. I even noticed at my local bookstore there’s a hardbound edition of the story that is fully illustrated and advertises the story being a "Motion Picture" right on the front cover. Yes, the short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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Today I found this interesting editorial in the New York Times by Stanley Fish (who, I might add is the dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at my alma mater, University of Illinois at Chicago). In his piece, he writes about a new "translation" of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which basically turns the poem into everyday-English prose.

The book is written by Dennis Danielson (who is a distinguished Milton academic) and is called Paradise Lost: Parallel Prose Edition (aff link), where the original poem is in the left-hand column and Danielson’s translation is in the right-hand column. Fish notes that Danielson thinks this new edition of the classic poem will pursue more readers to read it:

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When I first came across this story in the New York Times, I almost thought it was a joke. The mere irony that this would happen to Edgar Allan Poe is something you just can’t make up (well, he probably could have, if he were still alive).

In case you haven’t read the article yet, here’s the lowdown: Currently, Poe is buried in Baltimore, MD where he died back in 1849. But another city, Philadelphia, PA, also lays claim to Poe’s body, since that is the city where the author wrote many of his most famous works.

The story doesn’t stop there, however. A Philadelphia Poe scholar named Edward Petit is the one fighting for the rights to bury the author in his city. This is what he said in a recent interview:

"So, Philadelphians, let’s hop in our cars, drive down I-95 and appropriate a body from a certain Baltimore cemetery," Mr. Pettit wrote in an article for the Philadelphia City Paper in October. "I’ll bring the shovel."

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And the hits just keep on coming! I only say that because the story about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin wanting to ban certain books from the library has taken root and is garnering more attention across the internet (especially the blogosphere). I wrote about it in this post, and generally felt disgusted that someone would want to actually deny the pubic specific books because that person found the books objectionable to his/her beliefs.

Then, this evening as I was blindly surfing the web, I came across a list of books Palin wanted removed from the public library. I emphasize the word "public" because that’s what is important – a public library that is supposed to serve the public, including people of all beliefs and creeds. If a book is found offensive by a person, then don’t check that book out!

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When American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald died on December 21, 1940, he had seen incredible success as a novelist and short story writer, but had failed to leave a mark on the movie scene in Hollywood. He wrote several screenplays, mostly in an effort to try to pull himself out of financial troubles (read more here).

Fast forward to 2008 and Fitzgerald is still trying to make it big in Hollywood – or, at least, his estate is. According to this article from Publishers Weekly, his estate is trying to turn some of his famous novels and even a few short stories into movies:

In December, audiences will see Brad Pitt and Cate Winslett appear in the David Fincher-helmed adaptation of the author’s little-known short story, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." And, with Hollywood options on several other Fitzgerald properties, there may soon be a swell of material about, and by, the romantic and doomed Jazz Age writer.

But it keeps getting better:

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