The Recipes of Iconic Authors: Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Roald Dahl, the Marquis de Sade & More

in Books, Food & Drink, K-12, Literature | September 24th, 2013

dahl-kitkat

It comes as no sur­prise that Roald Dahl, author of Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry, pos­sessed a sweet tooth. Hav­ing daz­zled young read­ers with visions of Cav­i­ty-Fill­ing Caramels, Ever­last­ing Gob­stop­pers, and snozzber­ry-fla­vored wall­pa­per, Dahl’s can­dy of choice was the more pedes­tri­an Kit-Kat bar. In addi­tion to savor­ing one dai­ly (a lux­u­ry lit­tle Char­lie Buck­et could but dream of, pri­or to win­ning that most gold­en of tick­ets) he invent­ed a frozen con­fec­tion called “Kit-Kat Pud­ding.”

The orig­i­nal recipe is, appro­pri­ate­ly, sim­ple enough for a child to make. Stack as many Kit-Kats as you like into a tow­er, using whipped cream for mor­tar, then shove the entire thing into the freez­er, and leave it there until sol­id.

Book pub­li­cist and self-described lit­er­ary fan­girl Nicole Vil­leneuve does him one bet­ter on Paper and Salt, a food blog devot­ed to the recipes of icon­ic authors. Her re-imag­ined and renamed Frozen Home­made Kit-Kat Cake adds bit­ter­sweet choco­late ganache, replac­ing Dahl’s beloved can­dy bars with high qual­i­ty wafer cook­ies. It remains a pret­ty straight-for­ward prepa­ra­tion, not quite as deca­dent as the Mar­quis de Sade’s Molten Choco­late Espres­so Cake with Pome­gran­ate, but sure­ly more to Dahl’s lik­ing than Jane Austen’s Brown But­ter Bread Pud­ding Tarts would have been. (The author once wrote that he pre­ferred his choco­late straight.)

Vil­leneuve spices her entry with his­tor­i­cal con­text and anec­dotes regard­ing ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry can­dy mar­ket­ing, Dahl’s hatred of the Cad­bury Crème Egg, and his dog’s han­ker­ing for Smar­ties. Details such as these make Paper and Salt, which fea­tures plen­ty of savories to go with the sweet, a deli­cious read even for non-cooks.

Mean­while, dessert chefs unwill­ing to source their ingre­di­ents from Rite-Aid’s Hal­loween aisle might try Sylvia Plath’s Lemon Pud­ding Cakes (“Is it taboo to write about bak­ing and Sylvia Plath?” Vil­leneuve won­ders), C.S. Lewis’ Cin­na­mon Bour­bon Rice Pud­ding, Willa Cather’s Spiced Plum Kolache or Wal­lace Stevens’ Coconut Caramel Gra­ham Cook­ies.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham­burg­er Recipe

Allen Ginsberg’s Per­son­al Recipe for Cold Sum­mer Borscht

How to Make Instant Ramen Com­pli­ments of Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyza­ki

Ayun Hal­l­i­day  doc­u­ment­ed her own sweet tooth in Dirty Sug­ar Cook­ies: Culi­nary Obser­va­tions, Ques­tion­able Taste. Fol­low her @AyunHallliday

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A Journey into the Mind of P: A Cinematic Look at Thomas Pynchon

in Books | September 10th, 2013

Nov­el­ist Thomas Pyn­chon does not, as his read­ers well know, do pub­lic­i­ty. But does he need to? When a man has writ­ten books like V., The Crying of Lot 49, and Grav­i­ty’s Rain­bow, does­n’t the appear­ance of a new one pub­li­cize itself, in some sense? Pyn­chon’s eighth nov­el Bleed­ing Edge, a seem­ing­ly hard-boiled yet char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly askew and para­noia-fla­vored tale of post-tech-bub­ble but pre‑9/11 New York, comes out on Sep­tem­ber 17th, and a cer­tain class of fan has no doubt spent hours scru­ti­niz­ing the excerpt its pub­lish­er Pen­guin has already released. A cer­tain oth­er class of fan, the sort who spent long dorm-room hours with the ear­ly books but who some­how nev­er sum­moned the will for the more recent ones, will at least have felt their curios­i­ty piqued. To anoth­er class of fan entire­ly, those who feel like they could get into Pyn­chon but can’t quite deter­mine why or how, we offer the doc­u­men­tary above, Fos­co and Donatel­lo Dubini’s A Jour­ney into the Mind of P.

“I think of Pyn­chon as a cryp­togram,” says one read­er inter­viewed in the film. “We are almost, in a sense, code­break­ers. He presents a puz­zle that we are try­ing to crack.” That, as well as any­thing, sums up my own find­ings from talk­ing to Pyn­chon die-hards about their enthu­si­asm for their author of choice. A Jour­ney into the Mind of P actu­al­ly exam­ines two minds at once: the mind of Pyn­chon the writer, and the mind of the Pyn­chon fan, which seeks not only to grasp the cul­tur­al­ly sweep­ing, infor­ma­tion-dense height­ened real­i­ty of the nov­els, but also to con­struct a coher­ent image of the man who cre­ates that real­i­ty. Thus far, these read­ers have had to draw this image from only the nov­els them­selves (though, in sev­er­al cas­es, large and labyrinthine ones), and for the fore­see­able future they must con­tin­ue to do so. At least Bleed­ing Edge, what­ev­er its recep­tion, will add almost 500 more pages to their body of avail­able evi­dence. Best of luck, Pyn­chon exegetes with copies on pre-order. Per­haps the rest of you would rather start with the book trail­er just above. A new Pyn­chon nov­el may always make a splash, but Pen­guin’s pub­lic­i­ty depart­ment isn’t tak­ing any chances.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Read the First Page of Thomas Pynchon’s New Nov­el, Bleed­ing Edge

New Pyn­chon Book [Inher­ent Vice] Out Today: Watch the Trail­er

Thomas Pyn­chon Nov­els Com­ing to eBook, at Long Last

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Watch an Animation of Shaun Tan’s All-Ages Picture Book The Lost Thing

in Animation, Books, K-12, Life | August 26th, 2013

What would you do if you crossed paths with a jin­gling lost thing whose oven-shaped body, crus­ta­ceous claws, and fleshy ten­ta­cles would seem right at home in Hierony­mus Bosch’s Gar­den of Earth­ly Delights?

Scream? Run? Release your bow­els?

The anony­mous nar­ra­tor of The Lost Thing, a fif­teen-minute ani­ma­tion born of Shaun Tan’s all-ages pic­ture book, attempts, instead, to iden­ti­fy it empir­i­cal­ly through care­ful obser­va­tion, cal­i­brat­ed mea­sure­ment, and con­trolled exper­i­men­ta­tion. When the sci­en­tif­ic approach fails, he assumes respon­si­bil­i­ty for his strange find, lead­ing it through a clank­ing, grimy land­scape where san­i­ta­tion crews deflate beach balls with pointy sticks after the joy­less hol­i­day crowds are dismissed—a vision of steam­punk in defeat.

We’re loathe to hit you with any more spoil­ers. Suf­fice it to say that this is a fine exam­ple of inno­v­a­tive­ly adapt­ed source mate­r­i­al, and that even­tu­al­ly our sto­ic hero—voiced by British-born Aus­tralian com­ic Tim Minchin—and his charge arrive in a land­scape that should cause the inhab­i­tants of the Island of Mis­fit Toys to stop moon­ing over San­ta.

You will find The Lost Thing list­ed in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch a Whim­si­cal Ani­ma­tion of Ita­lo Calvino’s Short Sto­ry “The Dis­tance of the Moon”

Watch Ani­ma­tions of Oscar Wilde’s Children’s Sto­ries “The Hap­py Prince” and “The Self­ish Giant”

Hard­er Than It Looks: How to Make a Great Stop Motion Ani­ma­tion

Ayun Hal­l­i­day picks all man­ner of jet­sam off the curbs of her Brook­lyn neigh­bor­hood. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Crime Writer Elmore Leonard Provides 13 Writing Tips for Aspiring Writers

in Books, Literature, Writing | August 20th, 2013

Note: Elmore Leonard, the crime writer who gave us Get Shorty, Freaky Deaky, and Glitz, died at his home in Bloom­field Vil­lage, Michi­gan. He was 87. If you nev­er had a chance to read Leonard, you can start with “Ice Man,” a 2012 sto­ry that appeared in The Atlantic. It’s free online. You can also get a feel for his writ­ing by revis­it­ing a post writ­ten here by Mike Springer last year. It gives an overview of Leonard’s tips for aspir­ing writ­ers. And, in so doing, it pro­vides valu­able insight into how Leonard approached his craft. Elmore Leonard’s Ulti­mate Guide for Would-Be Writ­ers is reprint­ed in full below.

“If it sounds like writ­ing,” says Elmore Leonard, “I rewrite it.”

Leonard’s writ­ing sounds the way peo­ple talk. It rings true. In nov­els like Get Shorty, Rum Punch and Out of Sight, Leonard has estab­lished him­self as a mas­ter styl­ist, and while his char­ac­ters may be lowlifes, his books are received and admired in the high­est cir­cles. In 1998 Mar­tin Amis recalled vis­it­ing Saul Bel­low and see­ing Leonard’s books on the old man’s shelves. “Bel­low and I agreed,” said Amis, “that for an absolute­ly reli­able and unstint­ing infu­sion of nar­ra­tive plea­sure in a prose mirac­u­lous­ly purged of all false qual­i­ties, there was no one quite like Elmore Leonard.”

In 2006 Leonard appeared on BBC Two’s The Cul­ture Show to talk about the craft of writ­ing and give some advice to aspir­ing authors. In the pro­gram, shown above, Leonard talks about his deep appre­ci­a­tion of Ernest Hem­ing­way’s work in gen­er­al, and about his par­tic­u­lar debt to the 1970 crime nov­el The Friends of Eddie Coyle, by George V. Hig­gins. While explain­ing his approach, Leonard jots down three tips:

  • “You have to lis­ten to your char­ac­ters.”
  • “Don’t wor­ry about what your moth­er thinks of your lan­guage.”
  • “Try to get a rhythm.”

“I always refer to style as sound,” says Leonard. “The sound of the writ­ing.” Some of Leonard’s sug­ges­tions appeared in a 2001 New York Times arti­cle that became the basis of his 2007 book, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writ­ing. Here are those rules in out­line form:

elmore-leonard-writing-advice

You can read more from Leonard on his rules in the 2001 Times arti­cle. And you can read his new short sto­ry, “Ice Man,” in The Atlantic.

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Librarians Pay Tribute to Classic Beastie Boys Video; Name Henry Rollins Keynote Speaker at Conference

in Books | August 19th, 2013

http://vimeo.com/66169135?r44b=no

Librar­i­ans are break­ing the mold late­ly and flirt­ing with the world of hip hop and punk. Cour­tesy of The New York Pub­lic Library Tum­blr, we have Chica­go librar­i­ans pay­ing homage to The Beast­ie Boys’s 1994 video, “Sab­o­tage,” direct­ed by Spike Jonze. Of course, the orig­i­nal 1994 video paid comedic trib­ute to TV crime shows of the 1970s, shows like Hawaii Five‑O and Starsky and Hutch. So what we have above is a trib­ute to a trib­ute.

In oth­er librar­i­an news, The Cal­i­for­nia Library Asso­ci­a­tion recent­ly announced that Hen­ry Rollins, the for­mer front­man of the punk band Black Flag (see vin­tage per­for­mance here), will be the keynote speak­er at its con­fer­ence in Novem­ber. If you’re a reg­u­lar Open Cul­ture read­er, you might not be entire­ly sur­prised. These days, Rollins has been pitch­ing edu­ca­tion as the key to reviv­ing our with­er­ing democ­ra­cy and also explain­ing why tenac­i­ty, dis­ci­pline and hard work can take young­sters a long way. He also has 15 books to his cred­it. You can sam­ple his writ­ing by pick­ing up a copy of The Portable Hen­ry Rollins.

via Media Bistro and Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fight For Your Right Revis­it­ed: Adam Yauch’s 2011 Film Com­mem­o­rates the Beast­ie Boys’ Leg­endary Music Video

Hen­ry Rollins Pitch­es Edu­ca­tion as the Key to Restor­ing Democ­ra­cy

‘Beast­ie Boys on Being Stu­pid’: An Ani­mat­ed Inter­view From 1985

 

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The “Celebrity Lecture Series” From Michigan State Features Talks by Great Writers of Our Time

in Books, Literature, Writing | August 6th, 2013

michigan state lecturesThe Celebri­ty Lec­ture Series was estab­lished at Michi­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty in 1988, and it has “fea­tured some of the most illus­tri­ous schol­ars, crit­ics, nov­el­ists, poets, and cre­ative artists of our time.” Now, thanks to a spe­cial online archive, you can revis­it these lec­tures pre­sent­ed by the likes of Amy Tan, Arthur Miller, Joyce Car­ol Oates, Kurt Von­negut, Jr., Mar­garet Atwood, Maya Angelou, Nor­man Mail­er, Paul Ther­oux, Philip Roth, Richard Ford, Susan Son­tag, Tom Wolfe, Car­los Fuentes, August Wil­son, E.L. Doc­torow, Edward Albee, Isabel Allende, Gar­ry Wills, Jane Smi­ley, John Irv­ing, John Updike and Joseph Heller. Just click on any of the links above and you can stream the audio lec­tures for free online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

7 Nobel Speech­es by 7 Great Writ­ers: Hem­ing­way, Faulkn­er, and More

The New Yorker’s Fic­tion Pod­cast: Where Great Writ­ers Read Sto­ries by Great Writ­ers

Six Post­cards From Famous Writ­ers: Hem­ing­way, Kaf­ka, Ker­ouac & More

Jorge Luis Borges’ 1967–8 Nor­ton Lec­tures On Poet­ry (And Every­thing Else Lit­er­ary)

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See What Happens When You Run Finnegans Wake Through a Spell Checker

in Books, Random | July 29th, 2013

Spell Check

Read­ing James Joyce’s Ulysses is no walk in the park. Why else would so many peo­ple false­ly claim to have read it. (See our post from last week, 20 Books Peo­ple Pre­tend to Read.) But Finnegans Wake is a whole ‘nother deal. Joyce’s final work is con­sid­ered one of the most dif­fi­cult works of fic­tion ever writ­ten, and con­trary to Ulysses, the nov­el “has some claim to be the least read major work of West­ern lit­er­a­ture,” accord­ing to Joyce schol­ar Lee Spink. Put sim­ply, peo­ple don’t even both­er read­ing … or pre­tend­ing to read … Finnegans Wake (unless, of course, they live in Chi­na, where the nov­el reached the #2 posi­tion on a Shang­hai best­seller list ear­li­er this year.)

But I digress: why don’t read­ers even give Finnegans Wake a shot? The illus­tra­tion above per­haps says it all. The web site stammpunct.com has cre­at­ed a visu­al show­ing what hap­pens when you run a page of the nov­el through a spell check­er. It yields a lot of red, and then some more red. A fram­able print of this visu­al can be pur­chased at stamm­punct for $35.

Copies of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake can be down­loaded from our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. And you can hear James Joyce read­ing ‘Anna Livia Plura­belle’ from Finnegans Wake here. It was record­ed in 1929.

via The Paris Review

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear James Joyce Read From his Epic Ulysses, 1924

Hen­ri Matisse Illus­trates 1935 Edi­tion of James Joyce’s Ulysses

Stephen Fry Explains His Love for James Joyce’s Ulysses

Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe Reads Joyce’s Ulysses at the Play­ground (1955)

 

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20 Books People Pretend to Read (and Now Your Confessions?)

in Books | July 24th, 2013

pretend ulyssesThe good folks at Book Riot con­duct­ed a sur­vey of 828 read­ers, hop­ing to find out what books they’ve faked read­ing. The top five books (all avail­able in our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books col­lec­tions) may not come as a sur­prise:

  1. Pride and Prej­u­dice by Jane Austen
  2. Ulysses by James Joyce
  3. Moby-Dick by Her­man Melville
  4. War and Peace by Leo Tol­stoy
  5. The Bible

Nor will the remain­ing 15 astound you (give or take a cou­ple). But we’ll let you head over to Book Riot for the com­plete list. Wait! Stop! Before you leave, let us know what books you’ve fudged before. It’s anony­mous and all in good fun. Look for­ward to your con­fes­sions.

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