Author Terry Pratchett is suffering from a rare form of early Alzheimer's disease, it has been revealed.

fuck - I regard Terry Pratchett as one of the most talented comic writers of 20th century English

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Author Pratchett has Alzheimer's

What did Jane Austen look like and why should we care?
...
I was only a few pages into "Emma" when I realized that I was reading with a smile on my face.
...
One of the great pleasures of a reading life is picking up an old, familiar novel thinking that rereading it will mean a kind of reminding, when, in fact, the novel makes itself new all over again. It is as if the novel holds itself apart, waiting for real life to erase enough in us to make us suitable readers once more.
...
It is a failing to read Shakespeare and feel impoverished by the lack of biographical detail. It is no less a failing to read Austen and wonder what the mirror said when she looked into it. I cannot think of anything that would make "Emma" richer than it is.

yes yes
the work truly displays a beautiful mind

Meanwhile: Wow! Is that Jane Austen? - International Herald Tribune

With newspapers giving away her novels, Pride and Prejudice being voted the nation's top book and a new biopic in the cinemas, Jane Austen is riding the crest of a revival. But for those who've never picked up one of her books, what's the big deal?

nice little article -- for myself i'm a huge Austen fan - apart from Mansfield Park -- the keenest observer of human behaviour -- a perfect blend of mind and emotion -- yes she only wrote about a microcosm in a sense but her canvas is larger than may at first appear -- witty, intelligent and humane -- for myself anyone who dislikes Austen is frankly wrong

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Jane Austen - why the fuss?

When the Guardian referred to Martin Amis as 'Britain's greatest living author' last week, one reader was so outraged she threatened to emigrate - or worse. So if not Amis, who?

ahh yes well I think I would have to vote for Salman Rushdie but I'm strongly tempted to abandon conventional notions of good literary stylistics and vote for Terry Pratchett, purely in terms of narrative he wins for me. Of course it all depends what you want. Salman Rushdie writes much better prose. Thinking about it I would vote for both apples and oranges -- Terry Pratchett and Salman Rushdie -- different traditions the genre and the "serious" -- the comic and the high art -- the studied and the spontaneous -- both storytellers -- Terry Pratchett unpeeling popular culture, the polis, dreams, fears, authority, diversity, feminism -- Salman Rushdie East and West and the interzone of cultures and dreams, the nature of narrative and democracy

they write down and distil the dreams of the collective unconscious

Who is the greatest of them all? | News | Guardian Unlimited Books

noteworthy wrote:
This is a neat site.

What is LibraryThing?

Enter what you're reading or your whole library—it's an easy, library-quality catalog. LibraryThing also connects you with people who read the same things.

What's good?

* Searches Amazon, the Library of Congress and 60 other world libraries.
* Get recommendations. Connect to people with similar libraries.
* Tag your books as on Del.icio.us and Flickr.
* Put your books on your blog.
* Export your data. Import from almost anywhere too.

If you want to explore the site, try the zeitgeist and the BookSuggester. For example: enter From Dawn to Decadence and you'll get a recommendation for The Metaphysical Club.

it's weird how people have similiar ideas
i've spent the last couple of months learning bits of PHP and mySQL in part because I want to build a database of my books.
i figured that whenever i go around to someone's house i like to scan through the titles of their books and since i have a personal site i could stick a list of all my books and music on a database for people to browse
ahh convergent evolution
i still intend to go ahead with that if only for the intellectual exercise but it is fasinating to see this site and i'm tempted but i'm not sure i want to do the data entry twice
it would be nice if once i've done the database i could create an xml file and send it to them

RE: LibraryThing | Catalog your books online

In novels, plays, essays and newspaper interviews, Günter Grass has often told Germans what they did not want to hear: about their history, about their politics, even about themselves. For many on the left, since the 1960’s he has come to represent the conscience of a country with much to lament.

After winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, he explained his obsession with Germany’s past. “There were extenuating circumstances,” he told the Swedish Academy, “mountains of rubble and cadavers, fruit of the womb of German history. The more I shoveled, the more it grew. It simply could not be ignored.”

But now, at 78, Mr. Grass has stunned Germany by confessing that he too has a buried past. In an interview with a leading German newspaper, he revealed that in the final months of World War II, when he was 17, he was drafted by the Waffen SS, the military branch of the notorious Nazi corps that played an important role in the Holocaust and other atrocities.
....
that the country’s most prominent writer should have hidden this while hectoring others for their political and social sins from the comfort of the moral high ground.

sad yes
ironic yes
facing the ghosts of the past
I wonder what Primo Levi would have said

Günter Grass Under Siege After Revealing SS Past - New York Times