2005-09-30
Risking Enchantment
The Nicholas Pennell biography arrived in the mail Wednesday, and I left undone much of that which I ought to have done in order to read it from cover to cover. Even the intro. Much as I would have liked to know more of Pennell, the man, I'm grateful to author Mary Z. Maher for not delving too deeply into his personal life. She determinedly respects his privacy, while examining his artistic life and approach to the craft.
Throughout, Pennell comes across as gracious, generous, and passionate. His final letter to the Stratford Festival Company, written only days before his death, says it all. The text was released in the program for his memorial service at the Festival Theatre; Maher reproduces it in her last chapter, and now, as then, it brings both tears and smiles.
Featured title: Risking Enchantment2005-09-13
For many years, the Stratford Festival was my holiday destination each summer. Whether or not I could really afford the trip, I was eager to see as many performances as possible by an actor I considered magical: Nicholas Pennell. When he died suddenly in the spring of 1995, I drove up for the day to attend a memorial service; it was eight years before I went back. Now, ten years after his untimely death (he was 56), Mary Z. Maher has published Actor Nicholas Pennell: Risking Enchantment. Featuring interviews from Pennell, his friends, and his colleagues, "this biography, written with actors in mind, sparkles with Pennell's narrative gifts and brims with theatrical advice about performing Shakespeare."
Mary Maher is Professor Emerita, and teaches and lectures at the Centre for Shakespeare Studies, University of Southern Oregon. The book was funded by the Canadian Embassy in the United States and the Fondazione Bogliosco in Italy; it is published by PublishAmerica.
2005-08-30
Lots of books, but...
Wandered into a downtown book store at lunchtime today, looking for a mass market paperback for "in transit" reading during the day. I had several titles in mind, so it shouldn't have been too much of a problem to find at least one of them. Very tiny philosophy section; no luck there. Not too surprising, I suppose, for the middle of the business district. Over to the mystery section... and then science fiction... and finally, still with hope remaining, "fiction". Where I found several titles I wanted, but every last one only in expensive trade paper editions... and I know that mass markets are available. Walked out frustrated, and empty-handed.
The Medieval Murderers2005-09-05
The British have produced much of the very best in the historical mystery genre. Not too surprising, then, to learn that a team of medieval mystery writers have formed The Medieval Murderers to go out and give talks at bookshops and medieval fairs throughout the U.K.
Member Michael Jecks says, "So far we've travelled all over the place, from Portsmouth and Southampton, over to the wilds of Abergavenny, the flatlands of Norwich, and up to Manchester. Even more lucky, we still all get on very well, and I think that the events we give are mostly popular because of the amount of laughter we force out of even the most unwilling audiences."
The next logical step was putting out a book together, and this they have done. Titled The Tainted Relic, the common theme is a relic of the True Cross, cursed when it was stolen from a church. Members of the group use their own main characters, in their own centuries, to tell of the relic's passage through the years.
The Medieval Murderers are Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight, Ian Morson, Susanna Gregory (who also writes as Simon Beaufort), and Phillip Gooden.
2005-09-07
Centenary of George MacDonald's death
"I learned that it was not myself but only my shadow that I had lost. I learned that it is better . . . for a proud man to fall and be humbled than to hold up his head in pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood." [Phantastes]
George MacDonald died September 18, 1905, in Ashtead, Surrey. He was cremated, and his ashes lie buried in the English cemetery, Bordighera, Italy, along with his wife Louisa and daughters Lilia and Grace. To honour the Scottish author, the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, is holding a conference September 16 - 19: "George MacDonald and His Children: the Development of Fantasy Literature".
Scholars from throughout the world will present papers about MacDonald, and his circle, including Lewis Carroll and Charles Kingsley, and his successors, G.K. Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling, E. Nesbit and the Oxford Inklings.
2005-09-09
Pratchett title adapted for BBC
Terry Pratchett's Johnny and the Bomb is being turned into a children's drama starring Zoe Wanamaker, Frank Finlay and Keith Barron. The three-part adaptation will be shown on BBC One in 2006. It is being filmed by Ballykissangel director Dermot Boyd, with the story adapted for television by Peter Tabern, winner of an International Emmy and the Bafta children's writer award for CBBC's Stig of the Dump in 2001.
2005-08-10
Advice that all technical writers should take to heart:
Here are terms to beware of: fool-proof or idiot-proof (oh, you mean you think your customers are fools or idiots?); user-friendly (which usually means to hold users by the hand and force them to do things one step at a time, in prescribed order, whether they like it or not); and intuitive (which in actuality means so automatic it is not conscious, but those who use the term forget that almost everything we call intuitive, such as walking or using a pencil took years of practice.
Don Norman - Source: Sysprog.net : Quotations
2005-08-06
The Church Mouse
Graham Oakley has got to be one of the finest children's authors and illustrators we've ever had the good fortune to discover, so why are his delightful Church Mouse titles so hard to find these days?
In a busy little town, not very far away, there is a church and in the church there lived a mouse whose name was Arthur. Arthur liked living in a church. For one thing, he was very fond of music, particularly if it was loud.
Also, if the verger had filled the font, he could go and mess about in his boat, or practice the crawl, if the weather was warm enough.
Over the course of ten marvellously illustrated books, Oakley tells of the adventures of the mice who lived in the Anglican church of Saint John, Worthlethorpe, England, and the church's cat, Sampson, who took blessed are the meek quite to heart.
The most recent in this series was The Church Mice Take a Break, published in the U.K. in 2000, but apparently now out of print.