Friday's Literary Grab Bag

Rise And Shine, Somerset

Once upon a time there was a literary magazine editor. He was a short, pudgy man who wore cloudy glasses and had greasy hair. All day long he ate egg sandwiches, and his socks stunk through his shoes. At night he’d stay in his apartment, up late, watching through a window the cars passing on the street. When it came time for him to edit, he’d strip past his underwear and remove his glasses, spin furiously in his swivel chair and then go at it — blind, naked and dizzy — until all the tales that needed were told. This is what they said: Break out your pick axe, it’s time to unearth Maugham’s grave. Tufts University has a juicy bit of late breaking news: Boston’s a literary town! Prague is up on Israeli authors, just ask Oz. The first chapter in Prison Pitt is titled “Fucked.” Read more in The Faster Times. Who here has said they’ve read Proust and actually not read him? Atone for your sins inside the Cork-Lined Room. Blah blah blah more great writers win blah blah more writing awards. And then there’s this: Maurice Sendak, champion of adolescent agitprop, tells parents to go to Hell! Well well. Sounds like someone needs an egg sandwich. — Kevin Murphy

– Readers are notorious grave robbers. When it comes to our favorite authors, many of us posses a compulsion to read and learn everything. We cheer when manuscript fragments are uncovered, private correspondence tracked down, diaries published for all to read. The authors, long dead, can no longer insist on privacy, and it is often their loved ones and descendants who betray them by leaving items unburned and handing over love letters to publishers. — Somerset Maugham in The Smart Set

Tufts Keeps Their Beak In The Book

– As Boston has been home to more than a handful of great writers — including Hawthorne, Longfellow, Emerson and Thoreau — it seems a natural location to celebrate literature. The festival will take place inside buildings that highlight Beantown’s history, notably the Boston Public Library, Old South Church and Trinity Church, as well as outdoors in Copley Square. — Boston Book Festival in Tufts Daily

– In Prague to publicize the first Czech translation of his book A Tale of Love and Darkness, the prolific Oz has published 33 books, including numerous novels, poems and essays. His work has been translated into 37 languages, and he has won the Israel Prize for Literature and the Primo Levi Prize, among others. Oz has also been awarded the Légion d’Honneur and is an annual contender for the Nobel Prize for literature. — Amos Oz in The Prague Post

– Chapter 1 of Prison Pit, titled “Fucked,” opens with our hero, Cannibal Fuckface, being thrown from a spaceship onto a barren planet. His crimes are not mentioned. He is clad only in wrestling tights, shackles and, apparently, a mask of coagulated blood that covers most of his face. — Prison Pitt in the Faster Times

– Here’s the complete list of finalists for the 2009 Governor General’s Literary Awards. The winners will be announced in Montreal on November 17, and the award presentation will take place November 26 at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. — Literary Awards in Straight.com

Maybe You Should Start With The Comic

– You know you’ve been meaning to. You’re pretty sure that you’ve got a dusty copy of Swann’s Way sitting around somewhere. You’ve probably even read the book’s famous opening line, “For a long time I would go to bed early,” and thought to yourself, well, not now, maybe some other time. — Proust in the Cork-Lined Room

– For more than 40 years, kids have wondered about Where the Wild Things Are. Are they real or imaginary? Friends or foes? Now that we’re grown-ups, we still can’t help you, but we may have figured out where they really are: living with author Maurice Sendak in his Connecticut home. — Maurice Sendak in Newsweek

Video: Where the Wild Things Are