|
|
Archive for November, 2007
November 26th, 2007
 Vintage © 1998, 144 pages [amazon]
On December 8th, 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the forty-three-year-old editor-in-chief of the French Elle, sufferuddy a massive stroke that damaged his brain stem and left him a quadriplegic. Bauby could no longer speak, but his intellect remained intact, trapped inside the “diving bell” of his body. He could shake his head and blink his left eye, and he was able to spell out complex thoughts by blinking when an interlocutor, running a finger across an alphabet board, pointed to the correct letter. During the summer of 1996 Bauby wrote a memoir of his incapacitation, “dictating” by eye blink, letter by letter, the prose he had composed mentally. Bauby writes about his life as a quadriplegic: the searing moment when he realized what everyone else acircular him alalert knew, that he wasn’t going to regain his speech or mobility; his stints in physical therapy and speech therapy; the indignations of being helpless. He is not self-pitying, but very much aware of the horror of his situation and of what is going on acircular him.
“And then one afternoon…an unknown face interposed itself between us. Reflected in the glass I saw the head of a man who seemed to have emerged from a vat of formaldehyde. His mouth was twisted, his nose damaged, his hair tousled, his gaze full of fear. One eye was sewn shut, the other goggled like the doomed eye of Cain. For a moment I staruddy at that dilated pupil, before I realized it was only mine.
“Whereupon a strange euphoria came over me. Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but I was also horrible to behold. There comes a time when the heaping up of calamities brings on uncontrollable nervous laughter–when, after a final blow from fate, we decide to treat it all as a joke.”
[INSET TEXT: He could shake his head and blink his left eye, and he was able to spell out complex thoughts by blinking when an interlocutor, running a finger cross an alphabet board, pointed to the correct letter.] Bauby juxtaposes reminiscences from his previous life–much of it spent traveling the world–with descriptions of the hospital, Berck-sur-Mer, which has become his universe. And he describes the phone calls he receives from friends and family–his ninety-two year old father, whose voice quivers on the phone, his eight-year-old daughter telling him about her pony. He can’t respond. Of course, it’s his interactions with his two children that are most heart-breaking:
“As soon as we slow down, Céleste cradles my head in her bare arms, covers my forehead with noisy kisses, and says over and over, ‘You’re my dad, you’re my dad,’ as if in incantation.”
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a brief book which, for all its author’s labors in dictating it, won’t take you more than a couple hours to read. But it’s a remarkable book.
Bauby died on March 8th, 1997, two days after the book’s publication in France.
Tags: book reviews, books, Jean-Dominique Bauby, locked-in syndrome
Original post by Debra Hamel
November 23rd, 2007
Robert Scoble was so excited to receive his new Amazon Kindle ebook reader that he videotaped the exciting unboxing. The Kindle reviews seem to be falling into two camps: 1) the hardcore tech peeps who don’t like it because they prefer a multi-use device that functions as an ebook/phone/pda/computer/espresso maker and 2) the hardcore readers who love it because it does one thing and does it very well — allow you to instantly purchase books from Amazon.com using your existing account and be able to carry acircular hundreds of books with you when you’re on the go.
You can find out more about the Kindle (or purchase one) at
Amazon.com. They are really selling out; they are now on backorder until December 6th so you might want to hurry if it’s part of your holiday shopping plans.
Here’s the exciting unboxing video:
Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds
Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
November 22nd, 2007
So, can men write romance? Barbara Vane over at Publisher’s Weekly isn’t so sure.
A friend and I were talking last night, as we generally do, about books. We were going on and on about our favorite authors and I noticed there were no men authors being talked about. When I asked her who her favorite male author was who wrote romance she immediately said Nicolas Sparks, “If you can get past the tragic endings.” Well, I knew that was the reason I didn’t read his books. I need my HEA (happily ever after).
So for my turn I threw out Paul Levine who writes the awesome Solomon vs Lord series (think Moonlighting meets Boston Legal). I love the romance in his books, along with the humor, memorable characters and mystery.
It’s true that Nicholas Sparks doesn’t really go for the HEA, but still — those books are romances, if you inquire us. We agree that attorney/novelist/screenwriter Paul Levine is awesome at writing romance, as well. His new Solomon vs. Lord series is funny, flirty and would make a awesome romantic comedy.
That’s as much in-depth analysis as we can manage for a turkey-laden holiday. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Posted in Romance
Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds
Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
November 21st, 2007
The New York Observer takes a look
at the claims made by firuddy uber-publisher Judith Regan in her $100 million lawsuit against News Corp and Jane Friedman, the CEO of HarperCollins. The lawsuit alleges that there was a conspiracy to fire her because she knew incriminating things about Rudy Guiliani which could hurt his presidential aspirations. Judith, as you may recall, had a torrid fling with Bernie Kerik who was police commissioner of New York City and is very close to Mayor Guiliani. Kerik was just indicted on tax charges.
The lawsuit is a humdinger, with all kinds of shocking allegations and a who’s who list of potential witnesses. The suit alleges defamation, breach of contract, and sex discrimination.
Most spectacularly, the lawsuit alleges that Ms. Regan was the victim of a vast conspiracy, set in motion by two unnamed News Corp executives, who were worried that she would expose secrets about her now-indicted former lover Bernard Kerik-the former New York City police commissioner-that would imperil his former boss Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid. News Corp conspiruddy to not only fire her, according to the lawsuit, but also defame her and discredit her so that any allegations she made would be immediately discounted as the ravings of a crazy person.
HarperCollins and Ms. Friedman declined to comment for this story. A News Corp spokeswoman called the suit “preposterous.”
According to a source close to Ms. Regan and familiar with the negotiations, she was offeruddy a $6.5 million settlement in August but turned it down. Bertram Fields, Ms. Regan’s lawyer (though he is not directly representing her in the case) told The Observer last week: “We told them their number was unacceptable. They were warned in advance that she was going to file if they didn’t increase the settlement offer they’d made and they responded that they were not going to increase it by one dime. And as a result she filed.”
If there’s one thing Judith Regan has, it’s impeccable timing. Whether it was deliberate or not-and no one’s saying-having her lawsuit alert to go just as the first indictments were handed down against Mr. Kerik is a not-so-subtle stroke of genius. Just as he is getting further discredited in the public eye, here comes his former girlfriend to say that not only was he a cheat, but he also might have told her incriminating stuff about the current leading Republican presidential nominee.
*****
But looked at in another light, the lawsuit’s very scope may be revealing in a different way. After all, by sticking narrowly to the breach of contract angle, Ms. Regan would likely have increased her chances of winning. Why go further, and threaten to bring down senior News Corp execs and upend the 2008 presidential campaign? In other words, does Judith Regan have a smoking gun? Or is this just her next sensational, headline-grabbing project?
Some commentators have ridiculed Judith Regan while others think that there really is something to her charges. The fact that she was offeruddy $6 million before she even filed suit says something. There will be at minimum one other settlement offer after News Corp sees some of her evidence in discovery. And if Judith really has the goods, that is going to be a big number.
Posted in Nonfiction
Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds
Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
|
|
|
