================== Exception ==================
Message:Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Source:PLT.Core
Trace ==================
at PLT.Core.DataCache.ExecParser(DataParserInfo info, Dictionary`2 parameters)
at PLT.Core.DataCache.GetDataList(String dataSource, Dictionary`2 parameters)
at PLT.Core.ProcessorBase.GetDataSource(XElement container, DataCache cache)
at PLT.Core.EchoDataProc.Execute(XElement container, DataCache cache)
at PLT.Core.PageBuilder.Execute(DataCache cache)
at PLT.Core.RequestManager.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
/Trace ==================
================== /Exception ==================
Friday, June 1, 2012
Mieville works ‘Moby-Dick’ on the railroad
PLT Response Status:RequestManagerException
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Hot summer author: Larry Tye
In his new book Superman, Larry Tye has written a cultural biography of the Man of Steel, covering the many movie and TV adaptations and the unresolved legal battles between heirs of the creator, Jerry Siegel, who died in 1996, and DC Comics.
Josh T. Reynolds, for USA TODAY
The bookWhat's it about: A cultural biography of the Man of Steel, the numerous adaptations, and the unresolved legal battles between heirs of the creator, Jerry Siegel, who died in 1996, and DC Comics.Why it's hot: Superman, who burst into print in 1938, remains hot: The same day Tye's book is released, an animated film, Superman vs The Elite, hits theaters (a coincidence, he says). Coming in June 2013 from Warner Bros.: Man of Steel with British actor Henry Cavill as Superman, Russell Crowe as his Kryptonian father, and Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as as his earthbound parents.A taste: "The most enduring American hero is an alien from outer space who, once he reached Earth, traded in his foreign-sounding name Kal-El for a singularly American handle: Superman."On sale: June 12The authorQuick bio: Tye, 57, a former reporter for The Boston Globe, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal and The Anniston (Ala.) Star, has written four other books, including bios of baseball legend Satchel Paige (Satchel) and public relations pioneer Edward Bernays (The Father of Spin) and was co-author with Kitty Dukakis of Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy. He lives in Lexington, Mass., with his wife, Lisa, and two children, 19, and 17, his "in-home experts on comics and kids."Fun fact: Tye has his own red cape, emblazed with a L (for Larry), a gift on the 10th anniversary in 2011 of a fellowship program he runs to help reporters improve their coverage of health care. On Superman's enduring appeal: "Part of it is the irresistible allure of taking flight. Part of it is the seduction of the love triangle and his secret identity. Part of it is just being 10 years old again. The more that flesh-and-blood role models let us down, the more we turn to fictional ones who stay true."Biggest surprise: "How brilliant writers and screenwriters have been over the years in inventing and reinventing Superman. I expected to be cynical, but I was inspired."Up next: A biography of Robert F. Kennedy, the New York senator assassinated during his 1968 presidential campaign.His summer reading: "For pleasure and work," David Rowell's 2011 novel, TheTrain of Small Mercies, inspired by 1968 photographs of crowds who gathered from New York to Washington as the train carrying RFK's body passed by.E-books or print? "Print, definitely. As an old newspaper guy, holding what I'm reading is part of the joy."
Josh T. Reynolds, for USA TODAYLarry Tye writes about the history of Superman in his new book.
Josh T. Reynolds, for USA TODAYLarry Tye writes about the history of Superman in his new book.
The book:Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring HeroBy Larry Tye Random House, $27 The bookWhat's it about: A cultural biography of the Man of Steel, the numerous adaptations, and the unresolved legal battles between heirs of the creator, Jerry Siegel, who died in 1996, and DC Comics.Why it's hot: Superman, who burst into print in 1938, remains hot: The same day Tye's book is released, an animated film, Superman vs The Elite, hits theaters (a coincidence, he says). Coming in June 2013 from Warner Bros.: Man of Steel with British actor Henry Cavill as Superman, Russell Crowe as his Kryptonian father, and Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as as his earthbound parents.A taste: "The most enduring American hero is an alien from outer space who, once he reached Earth, traded in his foreign-sounding name Kal-El for a singularly American handle: Superman."On sale: June 12The authorQuick bio: Tye, 57, a former reporter for The Boston Globe, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal and The Anniston (Ala.) Star, has written four other books, including bios of baseball legend Satchel Paige (Satchel) and public relations pioneer Edward Bernays (The Father of Spin) and was co-author with Kitty Dukakis of Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy. He lives in Lexington, Mass., with his wife, Lisa, and two children, 19, and 17, his "in-home experts on comics and kids."Fun fact: Tye has his own red cape, emblazed with a L (for Larry), a gift on the 10th anniversary in 2011 of a fellowship program he runs to help reporters improve their coverage of health care. On Superman's enduring appeal: "Part of it is the irresistible allure of taking flight. Part of it is the seduction of the love triangle and his secret identity. Part of it is just being 10 years old again. The more that flesh-and-blood role models let us down, the more we turn to fictional ones who stay true."Biggest surprise: "How brilliant writers and screenwriters have been over the years in inventing and reinventing Superman. I expected to be cynical, but I was inspired."Up next: A biography of Robert F. Kennedy, the New York senator assassinated during his 1968 presidential campaign.His summer reading: "For pleasure and work," David Rowell's 2011 novel, TheTrain of Small Mercies, inspired by 1968 photographs of crowds who gathered from New York to Washington as the train carrying RFK's body passed by.E-books or print? "Print, definitely. As an old newspaper guy, holding what I'm reading is part of the joy."Contributing: By Bob Minzesheimer
For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
'Cronkite' biographer Brinkley anchors the man in his moment
NEW YORK – In a small studio at CBS News headquarters, historian Douglas Brinkley is watching a piece of history, a black-and-white tape of his latest subject, Walter Cronkite, who's about to tell the nation that President Kennedy has been killed.
By Todd Plitt, USA TODAY
Brinkley says Cronkite's "punctuated delivery was bracing," but he also was "covering his own back," using Rather "as his potential fall guy if the report proved false."Moments later, Cronkite is handed another note. He slowly removes his black horn-rimmed glasses, "as though," Brinkley says, "to warn people to prepare themselves."After putting his glasses back on, Cronkite sighs and says: "From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 o'clock p.m. Central Standard Time, 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago."He glances at the wall clock behind him. "It's as if he's recording the time for history," Brinkley observes.There's a hint of a tear in the anchorman's eyes."There's a whole literature on whether Walter cried or not," Brinkley says. "But he was certainly misty-eyed, which was better than crying. He showed emotion, but not too much. The nation was beginning to process its emotions through Walter's emotions."In addition to Cronkite, the biography by Douglas Brinkley, there are three other new books that deal with Cronkite and CBS News:--Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News by Dan Rather with Digby Diehl (Grand Central, $27.99) offers Rather’s version of his rise and fall at CBS — he was forced out in 2006 after 44 years — but ignores his feud with Cronkite. Rather does write that Cronkite’s support mattered during the Watergate scandal when the Nixon White House tried to get Rather fired.--Mike Wallace: A Life by Peter Rader (Thomas Dunne, $25.99) describes Wallace of 60 Minutes, who died last month at 93, as “both a journalist and entertainer” who walked “this tightrope with brilliance and finesse.”--Assignment to Hell: The War Against Nazi Germany with Correspondents Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A.J. Liebling, Homer Bigart, and Hal Boyle by Timothy M. Gay (New American Library, $26.95) borrows its title from Cronkite’s 1943 dispatch for United Press about a bombing raid over Germany as “an assignment from hell, a hell at 26,000 feet above the earth, a hell of burning tracer bullets and bursting gunfire.”Raised on the radioBrinkley's book traces Cronkite's roots as a radio sports announcer in Kansas City and World War II wire service reporter who went on bombing missions over Germany. He joined CBS in 1950. On The Morning Show, he discussed current events with a puppet, a lion named Charlemane, but preferred reporting on the fledgling space race. He was anchor from 1962 until 1981, when he was pushed into retirement at 65 to make way for Rather.Brinkley devotes seven of his 819 pages to the bitter and well-documented feud that developed between Cronkite and Rather. (Basically, Cronkite thought Rather was grandstanding as anchor; Rather dismissed Cronkite's public criticism as jealousy.) That's attracted pre-publication headlines, which doesn't surprise Brinkley."People are interested in feuds," he says, adding that he tried to see both sides of the rivalry and spoke at length to Rather. "Both sides behaved badly," he adds.Rather (who declined to comment on the book to USA TODAY) told Brinkley that Cronkite "was competitive down to his marrow. It was like he woke up in 1987 and saw me in his old job with successful ratings, making more money than he ever did. … He wanted to destroy me. … I didn't want to fight him."So I hunkered down in the fetal position and just took it."But veteran CBS reporter Morley Safer told Brinkley: "Rather was determined to wipe out every vestige of Cronkite. … Rather was nasty toward Walter."Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw told Brinkley that Cronkite "never grew bitter or unapproachable. Walter got up every morning knowing who he was. Dan Rather woke up every morning trying to decide who he'd be that day. As a result, Rather didn't have a clue."Reams have been written about Cronkite, who died in 2009 at age 92. Brinkley, 51, a history professor at Rice University in Houston and on-air analyst for CBS, says the idea for a definitive biography was triggered about nine years ago by David Halberstam, the reporter turned historian.Halberstam, who died in 2007, and Brinkley were driving from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to speak at the Louisiana Book Festival. "Somewhere around Gonzales," Brinkley recalls, Halberstam said "Cronkite was the most significant journalist of the second half of the 20th century," but no author had adequately tackled his life and times.That inspired Brinkley, the son of two teachers whose family never had dinner without first watching The Evening News With Walter Cronkite. Cronkite appears in drawings Brinkley did at 7, illustrated news reports that his mother saved. Long after the car ride with Halberstam, Brinkley has borrowed a CBS studio, down the hall from Cronkite's old newsroom (now used by CBS Radio) to discuss his book and Cronkite's "exquisite timing."Had he been born a decade earlier (rather than in 1916), he "probably would have become a B-list radio voice," Brinkley says. Had had he been born a decade or two later, "he'd probably be just another broadcaster, one of many."'American royalty'For better or worse, no one in today's fractured media has Cronkite's power, influence or popularity.Reading Cronkite is "like revisiting another world," says Brian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN, who says of Brinkley: "He's full of ideas, enthusiasm and stories. There's no one quite like him."The same was said for Cronkite, despite his shortcomings. "He was NASA's great promoter, but it came from his heart," Brinkley says. "He had an intense curiosity about how machines worked."But in Vietnam in 1965, he was so taken by the weapons, he missed the political perspective. He didn't see that until 1968."At heart, Cronkite was an "FDR liberal," Brinkley says, but he "obfuscated that on the nightly news." In retirement, Cronkite criticized the Gulf War, the war in Iraq and the religious right.Brinkley, who has written books on Theodore Roosevelt (The Wilderness Warrior) and Hurricane Katrina (The Great Deluge) and edited Jack Kerouac's journals and Ronald Reagan's diary, met Cronkite several times but never formally interviewed him. Off-camera, he says, Cronkite was "a mensch," although notoriously tight-fisted. Like Brinkley, who's the literary executor for Hunter Thompson and friends with Sean Penn and Johnny Depp, Cronkite had unlikely friendships.After Betsy, his wife of 65 years, died in 2005, Cronkite met two friends, singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. As Brinkley describes it, Buffett told Cronkite: "Mickey and I know what hell you're going through right now having lost Betsy. I've never known a marriage that worked so well, that was so close. We — "Cronkite interrupted. "Boys," he said, "Stop! Stop! Stop! There's something you should know. I've got a new girlfriend."Just weeks after his wife died, Cronkite starting dating Joanna Simon, a widowed Manhattan real estate broker and sister of singer Carly Simon. She was 24 years his junior.One night, after they moved in together, they were walking to a restaurant, and as Brinkley describes it, "People kept coming up to Cronkite to shake the great man's hand."" 'You know, Walter,' Simon said, 'you really are American royalty.' He looked at her lovingly and said, 'As long as I'm your King of Hearts,' " to which Brinkley adds, "Simon swooned."And what did Brinkley learn from all his research?"Cronkite wasn't like ordinary TV narcissists and braggarts. He didn't broadcast what the folks wanted. Cronkite instead wanted what the people wanted to be considered serious news."The difference was subtle, but sharp."For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
By Todd Plitt, USA TODAYAnd that's the way it is: Historian Douglas Brinkley in front of an image of Walter Cronkite at CBS studios in New York. His biography, 'Cronkite,' arrives Tuesday.
By Todd Plitt, USA TODAYAnd that's the way it is: Historian Douglas Brinkley in front of an image of Walter Cronkite at CBS studios in New York. His biography, 'Cronkite,' arrives Tuesday.
As the author of the biography Cronkite (Harper, $34.99, on sale Tuesday), Brinkley has logged countless hours viewing such tapes. But he says he never tires of watching "the most trusted man in America," as Cronkite was crowned in a poll.On the screen, it's Nov. 22, 1963. Cronkite is 46, in his second year as anchor. He's in shirtsleeves. His hair is slightly tousled. CBS Radio already has broadcast an unconfirmed report from Dallas that the president is dead.Cronkite, however, holds off until he's handed a note. "We just have a report from our correspondent Dan Rather in Dallas," Cronkite tells viewers. "He has confirmed that President Kennedy is dead."But in that distinctive and deliberate voice — "flue-cured Southern with the drawl trimmed off," as Tom Wolfe described it — Cronkite adds, "We still have no official confirmation of this." Brinkley says Cronkite's "punctuated delivery was bracing," but he also was "covering his own back," using Rather "as his potential fall guy if the report proved false."Moments later, Cronkite is handed another note. He slowly removes his black horn-rimmed glasses, "as though," Brinkley says, "to warn people to prepare themselves."After putting his glasses back on, Cronkite sighs and says: "From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 o'clock p.m. Central Standard Time, 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago."He glances at the wall clock behind him. "It's as if he's recording the time for history," Brinkley observes.There's a hint of a tear in the anchorman's eyes."There's a whole literature on whether Walter cried or not," Brinkley says. "But he was certainly misty-eyed, which was better than crying. He showed emotion, but not too much. The nation was beginning to process its emotions through Walter's emotions."In addition to Cronkite, the biography by Douglas Brinkley, there are three other new books that deal with Cronkite and CBS News:--Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News by Dan Rather with Digby Diehl (Grand Central, $27.99) offers Rather’s version of his rise and fall at CBS — he was forced out in 2006 after 44 years — but ignores his feud with Cronkite. Rather does write that Cronkite’s support mattered during the Watergate scandal when the Nixon White House tried to get Rather fired.--Mike Wallace: A Life by Peter Rader (Thomas Dunne, $25.99) describes Wallace of 60 Minutes, who died last month at 93, as “both a journalist and entertainer” who walked “this tightrope with brilliance and finesse.”--Assignment to Hell: The War Against Nazi Germany with Correspondents Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A.J. Liebling, Homer Bigart, and Hal Boyle by Timothy M. Gay (New American Library, $26.95) borrows its title from Cronkite’s 1943 dispatch for United Press about a bombing raid over Germany as “an assignment from hell, a hell at 26,000 feet above the earth, a hell of burning tracer bullets and bursting gunfire.”Raised on the radioBrinkley's book traces Cronkite's roots as a radio sports announcer in Kansas City and World War II wire service reporter who went on bombing missions over Germany. He joined CBS in 1950. On The Morning Show, he discussed current events with a puppet, a lion named Charlemane, but preferred reporting on the fledgling space race. He was anchor from 1962 until 1981, when he was pushed into retirement at 65 to make way for Rather.Brinkley devotes seven of his 819 pages to the bitter and well-documented feud that developed between Cronkite and Rather. (Basically, Cronkite thought Rather was grandstanding as anchor; Rather dismissed Cronkite's public criticism as jealousy.) That's attracted pre-publication headlines, which doesn't surprise Brinkley."People are interested in feuds," he says, adding that he tried to see both sides of the rivalry and spoke at length to Rather. "Both sides behaved badly," he adds.Rather (who declined to comment on the book to USA TODAY) told Brinkley that Cronkite "was competitive down to his marrow. It was like he woke up in 1987 and saw me in his old job with successful ratings, making more money than he ever did. … He wanted to destroy me. … I didn't want to fight him."So I hunkered down in the fetal position and just took it."But veteran CBS reporter Morley Safer told Brinkley: "Rather was determined to wipe out every vestige of Cronkite. … Rather was nasty toward Walter."Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw told Brinkley that Cronkite "never grew bitter or unapproachable. Walter got up every morning knowing who he was. Dan Rather woke up every morning trying to decide who he'd be that day. As a result, Rather didn't have a clue."Reams have been written about Cronkite, who died in 2009 at age 92. Brinkley, 51, a history professor at Rice University in Houston and on-air analyst for CBS, says the idea for a definitive biography was triggered about nine years ago by David Halberstam, the reporter turned historian.Halberstam, who died in 2007, and Brinkley were driving from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to speak at the Louisiana Book Festival. "Somewhere around Gonzales," Brinkley recalls, Halberstam said "Cronkite was the most significant journalist of the second half of the 20th century," but no author had adequately tackled his life and times.That inspired Brinkley, the son of two teachers whose family never had dinner without first watching The Evening News With Walter Cronkite. Cronkite appears in drawings Brinkley did at 7, illustrated news reports that his mother saved. Long after the car ride with Halberstam, Brinkley has borrowed a CBS studio, down the hall from Cronkite's old newsroom (now used by CBS Radio) to discuss his book and Cronkite's "exquisite timing."Had he been born a decade earlier (rather than in 1916), he "probably would have become a B-list radio voice," Brinkley says. Had had he been born a decade or two later, "he'd probably be just another broadcaster, one of many."'American royalty'For better or worse, no one in today's fractured media has Cronkite's power, influence or popularity.Reading Cronkite is "like revisiting another world," says Brian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN, who says of Brinkley: "He's full of ideas, enthusiasm and stories. There's no one quite like him."The same was said for Cronkite, despite his shortcomings. "He was NASA's great promoter, but it came from his heart," Brinkley says. "He had an intense curiosity about how machines worked."But in Vietnam in 1965, he was so taken by the weapons, he missed the political perspective. He didn't see that until 1968."At heart, Cronkite was an "FDR liberal," Brinkley says, but he "obfuscated that on the nightly news." In retirement, Cronkite criticized the Gulf War, the war in Iraq and the religious right.Brinkley, who has written books on Theodore Roosevelt (The Wilderness Warrior) and Hurricane Katrina (The Great Deluge) and edited Jack Kerouac's journals and Ronald Reagan's diary, met Cronkite several times but never formally interviewed him. Off-camera, he says, Cronkite was "a mensch," although notoriously tight-fisted. Like Brinkley, who's the literary executor for Hunter Thompson and friends with Sean Penn and Johnny Depp, Cronkite had unlikely friendships.After Betsy, his wife of 65 years, died in 2005, Cronkite met two friends, singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. As Brinkley describes it, Buffett told Cronkite: "Mickey and I know what hell you're going through right now having lost Betsy. I've never known a marriage that worked so well, that was so close. We — "Cronkite interrupted. "Boys," he said, "Stop! Stop! Stop! There's something you should know. I've got a new girlfriend."Just weeks after his wife died, Cronkite starting dating Joanna Simon, a widowed Manhattan real estate broker and sister of singer Carly Simon. She was 24 years his junior.One night, after they moved in together, they were walking to a restaurant, and as Brinkley describes it, "People kept coming up to Cronkite to shake the great man's hand."" 'You know, Walter,' Simon said, 'you really are American royalty.' He looked at her lovingly and said, 'As long as I'm your King of Hearts,' " to which Brinkley adds, "Simon swooned."And what did Brinkley learn from all his research?"Cronkite wasn't like ordinary TV narcissists and braggarts. He didn't broadcast what the folks wanted. Cronkite instead wanted what the people wanted to be considered serious news."The difference was subtle, but sharp."For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Hot summer author: Laura Moriarty
In 1922, Louise Brooks, the Kansas teenager who will be transformed into a star of the silent screen, travels to New York for dance lessons accompanied by Cora Carlisle, a middle-aged chaperone who has hidden motives for taking the trip. That's the story behind Laura Moriarty's new summer novel, The Chaperone.
By Earl R. Richardson, for USA TODAY
Why it's hot:Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern narrates the audiobook and will star in the film version.A taste: "The remarkable black hair, shiny and straight and cropped just below her ears, the ends tapering forward on both sides as if forming arrows to her full lips. A smooth curtain of thick bangs stopped abruptly above her brows … really, this girl looked like no one else."On sale: June 5The authorQuick bio: Moriarty, 41, who teaches creative writing at the University of Kansas, lives in Lawrence with her husband, Ben Eggleston, a professor of philosophy, and their daughter, Vivian, 8. The Chaperone is her fourth novel.Fun fact: The chaperone in this novel is named Cora, just like the character McGovern plays on Downton Abbey. "I hadn't seen Downton Abbey when I was writing it, and I think I might have changed the name if I'd known. It's just a coincidence, and I wonder if they'll change it for the movie so people don't get mixed up."On McGovern in the movie adaptation: "I've always really liked her, and like everyone else I'm a huge Downton Abbey fan. In a lot of ways it's similar to the character she plays because it's a similar time period, but this Cora is so different from that Cora. That Cora grew up in wealth and lives in England. This Cora is very much a Midwesterner with humble roots."On how she came to write about Louise Brooks: "I knew her personality was very vibrant and that she was difficult, self-destructive in a lot ways and smart and interesting. But when I had read she had left Wichita at 15 with a chaperone I started thinking, 'I wonder if I could write a novel about that.' "On Brooks' signature look: "She had the bangs, the real Buster Brown, and I think with her features and how she looked, it was just completely striking to the point where if she changed it she wouldn't really look like herself."Up next: Moriarty is doing research for a new novel, this one set in the 1930s.Her summer reading: "I'm going to reread Baby Jesus Pawn Shop by Lucia Orth. It's a little bit like The Chaperone in that it has a fictional character and a real historical backdrop. It takes place in the Philippines in the 1980s."E-books or print? "I don't have an e-reader yet. I'm still reading books and don't know when I'll make the jump. I do listen to audiobooks. I love to listen to a book when I'm walking in the woods when they have a wonderful narrator."
By Earl R. Richardson, for USA TODAYShe's not in Kansas anymore: Lawrence resident Laura Moriarty goes to 1920s New York with Louise Brooks in her fourth novel, The Chaperone.
By Earl R. Richardson, for USA TODAYShe's not in Kansas anymore: Lawrence resident Laura Moriarty goes to 1920s New York with Louise Brooks in her fourth novel, The Chaperone.
The book:The Chaperoneby Laura MoriartyRiverhead, $26.95 Why it's hot:Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern narrates the audiobook and will star in the film version.A taste: "The remarkable black hair, shiny and straight and cropped just below her ears, the ends tapering forward on both sides as if forming arrows to her full lips. A smooth curtain of thick bangs stopped abruptly above her brows … really, this girl looked like no one else."On sale: June 5The authorQuick bio: Moriarty, 41, who teaches creative writing at the University of Kansas, lives in Lawrence with her husband, Ben Eggleston, a professor of philosophy, and their daughter, Vivian, 8. The Chaperone is her fourth novel.Fun fact: The chaperone in this novel is named Cora, just like the character McGovern plays on Downton Abbey. "I hadn't seen Downton Abbey when I was writing it, and I think I might have changed the name if I'd known. It's just a coincidence, and I wonder if they'll change it for the movie so people don't get mixed up."On McGovern in the movie adaptation: "I've always really liked her, and like everyone else I'm a huge Downton Abbey fan. In a lot of ways it's similar to the character she plays because it's a similar time period, but this Cora is so different from that Cora. That Cora grew up in wealth and lives in England. This Cora is very much a Midwesterner with humble roots."On how she came to write about Louise Brooks: "I knew her personality was very vibrant and that she was difficult, self-destructive in a lot ways and smart and interesting. But when I had read she had left Wichita at 15 with a chaperone I started thinking, 'I wonder if I could write a novel about that.' "On Brooks' signature look: "She had the bangs, the real Buster Brown, and I think with her features and how she looked, it was just completely striking to the point where if she changed it she wouldn't really look like herself."Up next: Moriarty is doing research for a new novel, this one set in the 1930s.Her summer reading: "I'm going to reread Baby Jesus Pawn Shop by Lucia Orth. It's a little bit like The Chaperone in that it has a fictional character and a real historical backdrop. It takes place in the Philippines in the 1980s."E-books or print? "I don't have an e-reader yet. I'm still reading books and don't know when I'll make the jump. I do listen to audiobooks. I love to listen to a book when I'm walking in the woods when they have a wonderful narrator."Contributing: By Carol Memmott
For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
John Cheever remembered at centennial
By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY
Sunday would have been the 100th birthday of John Cheever, the great short story writer and novelist (Falconer, The Wapshot Chronicle, Bullet Park) who died in 1982 but continues to be cited as an influence by contemporary writers including Dave Eggers and Rick Moody.
As part of the Cheever centennial, Random House, one of his publishers, notes that Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, the hit TV show set in the '60s, keeps copies of Cheever's books in his office for inspiration.
Mad Men viewers and Cheever readers also may have noticed that an episode in the third season (when Don Draper's wife, Betty, takes up a local political cause) was inspired by Cheever's story "An Educated American Woman."
Random House also is offering some "Cheever trivia:"
-- Cheever's story, "The Swimmer," made into a 1968 movie starring Burt Lancaster, featured a cameo by Cheever himself as one of the neighbors.
-- The early seasons of Mad Men were set in part in Cheever's adopted hometown, Ossining, N.Y., a suburb 30 miles north of Manhattan. In the first few seasons, Don Draper and his family lived on the fictional Bullet Park Road after the 1969 Cheever novel "Bullet Park." ( A 1964 Time cover story on Cheever proclaimed him "Ovid in Ossining.")
-- Before buying a house in Ossining, Cheever and his family rented the former home of Richard Yates, who wrote the novel Revolutionary Road, another influence on Mad Men and Weiner.
In his 2009 biography, Cheever: A Life, Blake Bailey writes that "Cheever took pleasure in being a familiar face in his adopted hometown, the virtues of which he extolled with impressive zeal. When Cheever was profiled by People in 1979, the magazine described Ossining as a 'gritty enclave, dominated by Sing Sing penitentiary.'"
Bailey adds that Cheever, "indignant, rushed to disavow the slur in the local Citizen Register: 'Paradise on earth,' he said, 'with its fine views of the Hudson, its unpretentious people, its good restaurants, its nearness to New York."
Sunday, the Ossining Public Library will host a birthday celebration in the John Cheever Reading Room.
Monday, May 28, 2012
'50 Shades of Grey' to return to Florida library shelves
MELBOURNE, Fla. -- Less than a month after Fifty Shades of Grey was pulled from local library shelves, officials plan to put the erotic best-seller back in circulation as early as next week, according to the chairman of the Brevard County Commission.
Vintage Books, AP
Vintage Books, APBook covers from the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' series.
Vintage Books, APBook covers from the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' series.
Chuck Nelson said Friday that County Manager Howard Tipton and Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten, who oversees library operations, told him during separate briefings Thursday and Friday that the novel once more will be available to library patrons. Details are being worked out."Given where we are today," making the book available to library patrons would be "a reasonable approach," said Nelson, adding that e-mails and phone calls to his office ran heavily in favor of the book's return."I never want to be in a position where we appear to be censoring or banning books."County spokesman Don Walker said the county manager's office plans an announcement next week, but no final decision has been made.The county's Fifty Shades saga started when Cathy Schweinsberg, Brevard's library services director, decided to pull the system's 19 copies after reading the book. At the time, she said that the library had "erred in our selection process and are correcting the error, and, thus, it is not censorship."Officials said then they would review policies by which books are selected, purchased and reconsidered.But after Florida Today's first story about the ban appeared May 4, a national conversation ensued, with anti-censorship advocates demanding a return of the book by British author E.L. James. The first installment in a trilogy, it tops nationwide best-seller lists and features explicit sexual scenes.Linda Tyndall of Viera and her 16-year-old daughter, Becca, started an online petition asking for the book's return that drew almost 2,000 signatures.Tyndall said that while she might have understood had the library simply not purchased Fifty Shades -- many libraries nationwide have chosen not to buy it -- she would have fought as hard for the return of any book that was purchased and pulled."I'm very happy to have played a role in it," she said. "I do think the petition got the word out. … Anybody who spoke up against censorship needs to pat themselves on the back."The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida notified commissioners this week that it was considering legal action against the county.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Five questions for author Justin Halpern
Justin Halpern, 31, author of the 2010 best seller Sh*t My Dad Says, talks to USA TODAY about his second book, I Suck at Girls (It, $16.99).![Does the title 'I Suck at Girls' describe author Justin Halpern?]()
By Matt Hoyle
3. What does she think of the new book?She liked it, except she doesn't like stories from when I was dating other women.4. And is your dad still your first reader?Always. He has no problem at all telling me if he thinks something I wrote is terrible.5. Sh*t My Dad Says flopped as a TV show. What are the prospects of I Suck at Girls as a TV series?We'll see if the option (bought by Warner Bros.) gets picked up. And if it does, this time it won't be a sitcom with a live audience. I'd like it to be more like The Wonder Years. As a kid, I loved that show.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Does the title 'I Suck at Girls' describe author Justin Halpern? "When I was young. But now I'm married."
By Matt HoyleDoes the title 'I Suck at Girls' describe author Justin Halpern? "When I was young. But now I'm married."
1. For those who prefer not to use the word suck, as you do, is there an euphuism you can suggest for your title?How about "I Stink at Girls"?2. Do you?I did when I was young. But now I'm married. So hopefully, I don't. Maybe you should ask my wife. 3. What does she think of the new book?She liked it, except she doesn't like stories from when I was dating other women.4. And is your dad still your first reader?Always. He has no problem at all telling me if he thinks something I wrote is terrible.5. Sh*t My Dad Says flopped as a TV show. What are the prospects of I Suck at Girls as a TV series?We'll see if the option (bought by Warner Bros.) gets picked up. And if it does, this time it won't be a sitcom with a live audience. I'd like it to be more like The Wonder Years. As a kid, I loved that show.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
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