I had some extra time on my hands today, so I thought I'd do a little bit of poking around to find out if past BookBlog authors have been up to anything interesting recently. They're quite a busy bunch.

Steve Martin [Shopgirl] - The March 8th issue of The New Yorker includes script notes on Mel Gibson's The Passion from funnyman Steve Martin. LawGeek was kind enough to share some of it with all of us ("Possible title change: 'Lethal Passion.' Kinda works. The more I say it outloud, the more I like it.") since The New Yorker is kind of stingy with its online content. (link)

Gregory Maguire [Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister] - Damn, I missed it. This past Friday, Maguire was at the Columbus Circle Borders in New York City to sign copies of Wicked. However, the musical version continues to do well on Broadway, and you can buy $100 a pop tickets through its official web site. (link)

Chuck Palahniuk [Invisible Monsters] - On Tuesday, March 16th, Palahniuk will be live online with The Guardian. The author chat starts at 4:00 p.m. GMT, which is 11:00 a.m. EST. Questions posted include "[I]s it really a good way of meeting hot chicks?" and "There was a bit of graffiti on one of the bridges crossing over the 405 from 13th to 14th street. It read: Be boring. Be deathlike. Be Eva Lake. There was some other good graffiti around town, but I don't want to repeat it here. Have you any favorites?" If you, too, have an inane question for Chuck, get it in now. (link)

Jose Saramago [Blindness] - University of California television will be celebrating National Poetry Month by showing poetry-related programs Thursday and Friday nights throughout the month of April. On April 2nd, they will air From Memory to Fiction through History with Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago, a taping of a talk the author gave at UCLA. According to the UCTV site, you should be able to watch it on demand using RealPlayer, but I couldn't get it to work. Maybe you'll have more luck. (link)

J.K. Rowling [Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone] - Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has been shortlisted for The Butler & Tanner Book of the Year by the British Book Awards. Will she Bend It Like Beckham (Anyone else seen this flick?) and beat out the footballer's autobiography to the top prize? The winners are to be announced on April 7th. (link)

Haruki Murakami [Norwegian Wood] - This summer's Lincoln Center Festival is to include The Elephant Vanishes, a multimedia retelling of three stories by Murakami in Japanese with English supertitles. The performances by Tokyo's Setagaya Public Theatre will be shown from July 21st through July 25th, and tickets for multiple events go on sale beginning April 6th. (link)

Scott Heim [Mysterious Skin] - According to Heim's rarely updated blog, the movie version of Mysterious Skin, which stars the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun, is nearly complete. Andy, who moderated the book and also runs realityblurred.com, should be pleased to know that Heim reports being "utterly consumed by reality TV again." Suggestion for Heim: permalinks. xxmarydell. (link)

John Kennedy Toole [A Confederacy of Dunces] - The movie version of our August 2002 selection continues to have trouble getting off the ground, but still stars Will Ferrell as Ignatius J. Reilly. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about Elf, but IMDB message board posters have come up with some interesting alternatives: Oliver Platt, John Goodman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. (link)

While browsing Bookslut, I came across a link to Book Errata, a web site dedicated to righting the wrongs of bad copyediting. In the five minutes I spent on the site, though, I noticed a couple of typos of their own.

Could I have a comma, please?

Too many words, not enough time to copyedit.

The errors may be corrected since I sent them an e-mail, but, oh, the irony.

Speaking of typos, I found one on page 127 of my copy of Norwegian Wood: "'I couldn't tell the different between his strong points and his flaws, they were all the same to me.'"

Hi everyone,

It's technically the 27th here in Japan but I thought I'd give you all some time to make sure you had read all the way through Norwegian Wood. :)

So. What did you think?

I've put a few more specific questions in the extended entry to avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn't finished the book.

Does it feel like a Japanese story? Or just a typical story with Japanese names. When we discussed "The diamond age" we talked about jargon - do Japanese words in the story feel like jargon?

To me, one of the beautiful things about Murakami's worlds are that they're as real to me whether I know where (or what) they're talking about or not. I feel that this story could have taken place in New York, or Madrid or anywhere and it wouldn't have affected the story, only the names.

Except.

The characters are affected by the Beatles' music without ever completely understanding the lyrics. Had the story been set in an English speaking country, do you think the story would have changed?

I think it would have. I can't imagine the same story with a bunch of kids from my neck of the woods (SouthWest U.S.A.) listening and playing Los Lobos tunes with the same sort of feeling. As another example, I don't think the novel would have read as well if it had been Elvis that they were all into. Or Miles Davis. I think the fact that they didn't always understand the lyrics is important but I'm a t a loss as to how...

Finally, for my initial part, if you're looking for further reading, I highly recommend South of the Border, West of the Sun, also by Murakami.

Cheers,

Joel

Hello Again everyone,

I've volunteered to host January's book: Norwegian Wood by Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

It's a beautifuly written book and I hope you'll all enjoy it. I should point out that I think that there are two translations of the book, so make sure to get the edition that has been translated by Jay Rubin - just so we're all reading the same thing.

Thanks.

Joel