BOOKS THREAD

I'm putting those on my list. Thanks.

 

You reading it, too, Jones? I've been plowing through for the last couple of weeks. Just about done. It is indeed mammoth. They don't write books like that anymore.

 

Definitely one of those books I've always meant to read, Irish. Finally getting around to it and really admiring it.

And you're right -- these books don't really happen anymore. I mean, it must be 300,000 words. I can't imagine writing 100,000 words -- a respectable book by today's measure -- and saying, Phew, one-third done.

Sick.

 

One of the greatest works of creative nonfiction ever, and he wrote it, partly, to cover his alimony payments.
Mailer, man.

 

I enjoyed the book also, and might be relying on faulty brain cells, but wasn't there some dispute when this came out? Something along the lines of Mailer was working with a TV producer who did a lot of the research, and that producer ended up feeling ripped off. Something like that, anyway.

 

That was Lawrence Schiller, who later went on to fame with books on the OJ case, and on Jon Benet Ramsey. He still turns up as a talking-head some places.

 

He couldn't have been that broken up about it: Schiller directed the TV Movie in 1982, which was written by Mailer, based on the book.

Tommy Lee Jones was Gary, by the way.

I'm still early in the story, but I'm already killing myself for not reading it sooner.

 

Something else I may be mis-remembering -- the Pulitzer it got was for fiction, right, not non-fiction?

Or at least there was talk about which category to put it in.

 

You've all convinced me that I'm going to have to reread The Executioner's Song.

 

I just finished it, too. I'm sort of wishing I had some smart friends who read it too ... I read most of it while on vacation at the lake, a beer in one hand. It seems like the kind of thing I would have enjoyed even more going discussing point by point. Harry Potter was coming out though, so I didn't take the time to plod, just finished it and moved on.

 

I just saw the third Bourne movie and while I've really enjoyed the trilogy, I'm curious to see what people think of the Ludlum books. I know that the movies deviate a lot from the original plots and it's made me think about picking the books up.

 

I was a huge Ludlum fan in the late 70's and early 80's. The Bourne Identity and the Holcroft Covenant were my favourites. I think they're worth checking out.