F Scott Fitzgerald - GalleyCat

What Books Will We Remember in 100 Years?

Jason Boog — Fri, 10 May 2013 00:23:35 +0000

With F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby on top of bestseller charts and in movie theaters this week, one reader wondered: What contemporary books will we remember in 100 years?

Reddit readers from around the globe offered suggestions about the books that they think will be read for another century. Below, we’ve created one of our literary mixtapes–linking to free samples of the suggested books.

What books would you add to this sprawling list? If you want to know why we still remember The Great Gatsby, read Haruki Murakami’s inspiring essay about the book.

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Why Haruki Murakami Translated ‘The Great Gatsby’

Jason Boog — Wed, 08 May 2013 00:42:04 +0000

The great Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami once translated The Great Gatsby for Japanese readers. In Columbia University Press’ In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means anthology, you can read an essay he wrote about translating the book.

We’ve embedded the complete essay below. Murakami expressed his love for the novel, but also gave readers a peek into how he used his “imaginative powers as a novelist into play.” Just in time for the upcoming movie adaptation, read his thoughts about F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s novel. Here is an excerpt:

When someone asks, “Which three books have meant the most to you?” I can answer without having to think: The Great Gatsby, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. All three have been indispensable to me (both as a reader and as a writer); yet if I were forced to select only one, I would unhesitatingly choose Gatsby. Had it not been for Fitzgerald’s novel, I would not be writing the kind of literature I am today (indeed, it is possible that I would not be writing at all, although that is neither here nor there) … Though slender in size for a full-length work, it served as a standard and a fixed point, an axis around which I was able to organize the many coordinates that make up the world of the novel.

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Stephen Colbert Starts ‘cOlbert’s Book Club’ with ‘The Great Gatsby’

Maryann Yin — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:42:11 +0000

The Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert plans to launch “cOlbert’s Book Club.”

For the first installment of this humorous “rip off” of Oprah Winfrey‘s book club, Colbert plans to discuss The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jennifer Egan and filmmaker Baz Luhrmann will be his first guests on Thursday, May 9th. The video embedded above contains the full announcement–what do you think?

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Why Writers Should Read Rap Genius

Jason Boog — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:07:12 +0000

Rap Genius scored $15 million in funding earlier this year, an investment to expand the community that loves to annotate rap lyrics.

Most writers don’t know it, but the site contains annotations for everything from 2Pac lyrics to F. Scott Fitzgerald prose to letters from Barack Obama to Chapter One of Genesis to Jay-Z lyrics. The site has a simple goal: “Our aim is not to translate rap into ‘nerdspeak,’ but rather to critique rap as poetry.”

Rap Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam introduced the site at Mediabistro’s Social Curation Summit this week. If you want to annotate your favorite lyrics, you need to sign up for a Rap Genius account. If you want to add a song, poem, speech or story to the database, simply click “Add a New Song” button. You have to chose a rap, rock, poetry or other genre.

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Sourcebooks Brings Shakespeare into the 21st Century

Dianna Dilworth — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:23:37 +0000

In a move to make Shakespeare more appealing to students, Sourcebooks’ has built The Shakesperience, an interactive collection of classic Shakespeare made for kids who have kids who have grown up with DVD extras and iPads.

AppNewser has more: “The interactive eBooks, which were created using iBooks Author, bring Shakespeare’s plays to live with legendary performances that are embedded alongside the text. Tracks from actors including: Kenneth Branagh, Orson Welles, and Sir Laurence Olivier are among them. The eBook also includes embedded translations of terms into modern day words.”

Othello alone has more than 1,400 embedded terms.

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‘Gone Girl’ Library

Jason Boog — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 09:59:48 +0000

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn rocketed to the top of the Indie Bestseller List this week following some great reviews and BEA buzz.

The summer thriller is filled with enough suspense and twists to keep any beach reader happy, but it is also a book about writing. The main characters are avid readers, and they write letters, articles, journals, kid’s books and memoirs. The novel references other books, little Easter eggs nestled in the plot.

We’ve rounded up our five favorite book references in the thriller, building a spoiler-free library for anybody who wishes they could keep reading Gone Girl…

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Literary Pick-up Lines for Valentine’s Day

Jason Boog — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:42:10 +0000

As readers around the world celebrate Valentine’s Day, we wanted to share some of our favorite literary pick-up lines–helping literary folks find love.

Last week Random House sparked a Twitter movement with the literary pickup lines hashtag. We’ve collected some great examples below–add your line to the Twitter hashtag.

This GalleyCat editor added a pick-up line inspired by the last lines of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby: “You are the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.”

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Great Gatsby Boat Tour on Long Island

Jason Boog — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:23:01 +0000

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. Now you can live that famous metaphor in a two-hour Great Gatsby Boat Tour of Manhasset Bay and Long Island Sound.

Adult tickets cost $25 and tickets for children 10-years-old or younger cost $15. The next tour leaves on Saturday, May 21st at 2 pm. Follow this link for tickets.

“The Great Gatsby was set on “that slender riotous island” otherwise known as Long Island. Join us on a boat tour of the bay that ignited Fitzgerald’s imagination and become familiar with the peninsulas of West Egg (King’s Point) and East Egg (Sand’s Point) … Try to envision where Gatsby’s mansion might have stood and exchange stories of “the roaring twenties” on Long Island – a microcosm of the U.S.’s pre-WWII revolution in manners and morals.

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The Great Gatsby Nintendo Game

Jason Boog — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 07:23:12 +0000

Some brilliant artists have re-imagined F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby as a Nintendo game from the late 1980s. Above, we’ve embedded a screen-shot from the crazy project.

Follow this link to play the game (complete with 8-bit graphics and tinny soundtrack). According to the website, this wonderful bit of fan fiction was discovered at a yard sale. We are a bit skeptical about this creation myth, but it is a lovely piece of fan fiction.

Here’s more from the site: “If anybody has more info about this please let me know ! As it is, I really don’t know much about this game. I found it at a yard sale. I bought it for 50 cents and went home to try it out. After dusting off my NES for like, 20 minutes I got it working, and jesus. So weird. Apparently it’s an unreleased localization of a Japanese cart called “Doki Doki Toshokan: Gatsby no Monogatari”, but I haven’t found anything about that either. What’s left of the manual was just rubberbanded to the cartridge. I finally scanned them.” (Via io9)

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Romeo & Juliet in 60 Seconds

Maryann Yin — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:16:49 +0000

When eBookNewser gathered a list of romance films based on books, Romeo & Juliet made the cut.

In the the video embedded above, one reader retells the story of the world’s most famous star-crossed lovers in just 60-seconds.

This project is part of LitDrift’s “Classic Novels in 60 Seconds or Less” video series. What other great love stories could be told in 60 seconds?

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Leonardo DiCaprio & Carey Mulligan to Star in ‘The Great Gatsby’ Adaptation

Jason Boog — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:03:40 +0000

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio will play Jay Gatsby and Carey Mulligan will play Daisy Buchanan in an upcoming adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Baz Luhrmann, the director of Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet, is preparing to direct the adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s beloved novel.

Mulligan received the news yesterday. The 25-year-old actress was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the adaptation, An Education. Luhrmann included that photo of the actress on his website (copyright Bazmark), an image shot while Mulligan auditioned for the role earlier this month.

Here’s more from the director’s website: “Regarding the role of Daisy Buchanan, I was privileged to explore the character with some of the world’s most talented actresses, each one bringing their own particular interpretation. However, specific to this particular production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, I was thrilled to pick up the phone an hour ago to the young Oscar-nominated British actress Carey Mulligan and say to her: ‘Hello, Daisy Buchanan.’”

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David Fincher to Adapt Spooky 1970s Novel

Jason Boog — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:23:12 +0000

Director David Fincher will remake a 1970s movie based on a long out-of-print novel, Reincarnation of Peter Proud.

Fincher’s last film adapted an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story into an epic Oscar-nominated film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” According to Paste magazine, the new adaptation will focus on headier material. The original was directed by J. Lee Thompson (director of Cape Fear) and caused a stir with incest themes. The new film will be written by Andrew Kevin Walker and produced by the same crew behind Fincher’s darkest film, Seven.

Here’s more from the article: “The original version of The Reincarnation of Peter Proud centered on a man who has flashbacks and visions. When he investigates them further, they lead him to a mysterious woman and her daughter, and he begins a love affair with the latter … Fincher intends to contemporize Proud, adhering as closely to the source material of Max Ehrlich’s novel as possible.

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Joyce Carol Oates’ Literary Look at Ted Kennedy

Jason Boog — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:23:34 +0000

As public figures remember Senator Edward M. Kennedy, his love of poetry and literature has surfaced in tributes.

In a probing essay for the Guardian, prolific author Joyce Carol Oates used classic literary works by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Joseph Conrad to measure Kennedy’s reputation. It is an tough portrait of the Senator and an exploration of public redemption in America.

Here’s an excerpt from the essay: “One is led to think of Tom and Daisy Buchanan of Fitzgerald’s the ‘Great Gatsby,’ rich individuals accustomed to behaving carelessly and allowing others to clean up after them … The poet John Berryman once wondered: ‘Is wickedness soluble in art?.’ One might rephrase, in a vocabulary more suitable for our politicized era: ‘Is wickedness soluble in good deeds?’” (Via The Awl)

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Screenwriter Budd Schulberg Has Died

Jason Boog — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:23:04 +0000

Novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg has died. He was the author of “What Makes Sammy Run?” and the acclaimed screenplays for “On the Waterfront” and “A Face in the Crowd.”

The New York Times obituary recounts Schulberg’s early days as a screenwriter and his struggles after being blacklisted as a Communist. Following a strange experience working on a script with the great novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, Schulberg wrote the novel “The Disenchanted.”

The article has a wonderful quote about those heady days: “‘I said, ‘Who’s the writer?’ He said, ‘F. Scott Fitzgerald.’ … ‘I thought it was just a joke, like saying ‘Leo Tolstoy,” Mr. Schulberg recalled. ‘And I said, ‘Scott Fitzgerald — isn’t he dead?’ And he said, ‘No, he’s not dead, he’s right in the next room reading your script.’”

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Stanza Reader Turns One-Year-Old

Jason Boog — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:23:28 +0000

Stanza, the digital reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch, turned one-year-old today–celebrating 2 million downloads of the application and more than 12 million book downloads since its launch.

In April, Amazon.com, Inc. acquired Lexcycle, the company that created the Stanza reader. Coincidentally, this GalleyCat editor spent the weekend exploring the Munseys.com category of the Stanza catalog and reading free pulp fiction classics.

Stanza co-founder Neelan Choksi had this statement: “These milestones highlight that many people are quite comfortable reading full length books via Stanza on their iPhones and iPod touch. From commercial titles by Stephenie Meyer and Dan Brown to public domain titles by F. Scott Fitzgerald and H.G. Wells, we are thrilled to learn that Stanza has been partially responsible for a lot of people reading more in the past year than they have in years prior to that.” (Via Kat Meyer)

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