Stephen King's National Book Award acceptance speech "took the award to task." In his National Book Award acceptance speech, King criticizes and condemns the divisive clash between highbrow and lowbrow literary cultures. NPR audio highlights and post-award interview. To a degree, he blames the National Book Foundation itself for the divisiveness. His acceptance speech revisits many of the points in the previous archived discussion when the award was announced. Stephen King, Mefi snooper?
posted by basilwhite on Nov 20, 2003 - 16 comments

Fantomas Lives!
Fantômas is the Lord of Terror, the Genius of Evil, the arch-criminal anti-hero of a series of 32 pre-WWI French thrillers written by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. He carries out the most appalling crimes: substituting sulfuric acid in the perfume dispensers at a Parisian department store, releasing plague-infested rats on an ocean liner, or forcing a victim to witness his own execution by placing him face-up in a guillotine.
In 1912, Apollinaire founded the Societe des Amis de Fantomas which included prominent artists and writers. Magritte considered Fantomas to be a major influence in many of his paintings. Fantomas was not only a comic book but also spawned films, tv and radio shows and plays. (There is, of course, a modern band as well)(I read the Mexican comic book as a child)
posted by vacapinta on Sep 14, 2002 - 6 comments

John Grisham Steers away from the law again ... As in NOT writing about it, but thank heavens in February, it appears he'll be going back to his Legal Thrillers I don't know though, as much as I wanted not to.. I really liked A Painted House Surely, I'm not the only one...
posted by danger on Dec 4, 2001 - 3 comments

Waiting with bated breath for the conclusion of Stephen King's online serial? Touck luck. Even though I don't care that much for King, I'm disappointed that this experiment failed.
posted by harmful on Nov 28, 2000 - 3 comments