Happy Birthday Edith Wharton!

Our historical literary event for today is the birthday of American novelist Edith Wharton who was born January 24^th, 1862. Her perhaps most well-known novel is The Age of Innocence which earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. Here are a few interesting facts about our Author of the Day:

1. The phrase, “Keeping up with the Joneses”, was actually coined because of Wharton! She supposedly used it in reference to her father’s family.
2. Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature.
3. Wharton was a talented writer of horror stories involving ghosts and other paranormal activity.
4. After her divorce, Wharton moved to France and was able to visit the frontlines during World War I. She offered support through establishing hospitals and helping refugees find homes.

If you haven’t had an opportunity to read some of her books, now is a great time to start! You can check out Gutenberg for access to her novels and stories which are in the public domain. Happy reading!

Our Blog is Back and We’re Talking Movies!

We’ve been experiencing several small glitches during December and January as we’ve been working hard to improve everything about Postertext. One of those glitches was with our blog which meant no new posts for quite a while. Thankfully, we’ve got the blog back on track and we will be posting daily articles from now on. I hope you missed the blogs as much as I missed posting them!

So let’s break in the Postertext blog today with a familiar topic: movies based on books. It seems that November through January have been big months for great films that are renditions of amazing books! I have compiled a list of several of the more popular ones:

1. A no brainer is Peter Jackson’s film The Hobbit, which is based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous book.
2. A lot of people were really looking forward to the Life of Pi film based on the book of the same title by Yann Martel, but there seemed to be a lot of controversy about it. Some claimed there was way too much CGI in the film and others said it deviated too much from the true message of the book. What do you think?
3. Although the recently released Les Miserables film is based more on the musical, we can’t forget the inspiration for both originally come from Victor Hugo’s incredible novel!
4. And finally, David Mitchell’s book Cloud Atlas has also hit the silver screen in a visually enticing movie by the same name.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on them. Did you like the film? Do you feel it adequately represented the books? What would you change about the films? Happy reading and watching!  :)

Celebrate Thanksgiving with a Bit of Poetry!

Turkey day is upon us! Which means that after we are done feasting and giving thanks it is officially time to pull out that Christmas tree, dust off those ornaments, and brace yourselves for holiday shopping! But not before we take a moment to enjoy some Thanksgiving inspired poetry. On this special holiday, I give you Part One of Emily Dickinson’s poem One Day is there of the Series. Enjoy it, and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

November 15th: Day of the Imprisoned Writer

Event: Day of the Imprisoned Writer

When: Today, November 15.

Writers to remember:

1. Anna Politkovskaya – wrote about politics and human rights in Russia. Was murdered in 2006.
2. Liu Xiaobo – known for his works on human rights in China. Currently in prison.

You can take a look at the Pen International website for an extensive list of authors from 1960-2009 who have been imprisoned for speaking their mind!

Remembering Stieg Larsson: Author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Today is a day to remember Stieg Larsson who passed away from a heart attack in 2004 at the young age of 50. Most of us know Larsson from his Millennium series which starts off with the famed novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. His novels have been made into popular films both in Sweden in 2009 and in the USA in 2011, but unfortunately Larsson didn’t live to witness his books become known globally or to see them make it to the silver screen. As with most writers, there is always more than meets the eye, and this is very true with Larsson. Here are some little known facts about this author that I thought you might enjoy!

1. Larsson was a journalist for anti-fascist and communist publications.
2. In 2008, Larsson was the second best-selling author in the world. Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner) beat him to first place.
3. Larsson had little formal education. Instead of signing up for college he opted to backpack through Africa and the Caribbean. He was, however, and avid reader!
4. Larsson loved science fiction (he cited 2001: A Space Odyssey as his favorite film) and reading American detective novels – as long as the authors were women. Larsson, after all, was very pro-feminist!
5. The original title of Larsson’s book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was Men who hate Women.