Two Artists
Sometimes an idea seems so obvious it’s a wonder it wasn’t used before. Such is the case in The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, her first novel, published in 2012, a NY Times best seller. The premise is the slowing of the earth’s rotation and the consequences that ensue. It is told from the perspective of a 23-year-old woman looking back to the start of what is referred to as The Slowing, which occurred when she was eleven and continues throughout the narrative, mostly within a span of two years. Think of all the sci-fi that came before it. Has any other writer tackled the subject? If so, I apologize. The book is also about the difficulties of life at that age. The title refers to the physical changes that occur during those years, the growth spurts, the emergence of breasts. I won’t be a spoiler and say more about the story. The characterizations and dialogue are realistic, the prose okay. 1800+ readers at Amazon have rated The Age…, forging to a consensus of 4.1 on a scale of five. I’ll go with 3.5. Thompson’s second novel was published in 2019. Born in 1980 in San Diego, where the narrative is set, she is currently an assistant professor of writing at the University of Oregon.
RIP highly successful filmmaker Richard Donner, 91. Born in the Bronx as Schwartzberg, he honed his craft at the helm of scores of popular TV fare, including six episodes of The Twilight Zone. His big screen breakout came in 1976, The Omen. He directed the first two installments of the Christopher Reeve Superman films and all four of the wildly popular Lethal Weapon series. My favorite of his canon is Maverick (1994), starring Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster, whose chemistry was electric. He also did serious work: Sarah T. — Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, a 1975 TV movie starring Linda Blair, and Inside Moves (1980), a story about misfits, which garnered Diana Scarwid an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Well done, sir. Thank you.
I played it smart today at the floating book shop. I put out only a third of the wares, all in the shade. And I packed up an hour early, once the sun began encroaching on my nook. Surprisingly, the intense heat did not deter customers. My thanks to the gentleman who purchased a number of books for his niece and nephew, including a beginner’s guitar manual that contains a CD; and also to the woman who bought four books in Russian, including two large pamphlet-like ones on its greatest poets, Pushkin and Lermontov; and to the gentleman who selected The Dying Animal by Phillip Roth and two books in Russian, including one of the huge Einstein tomes I’ve been carrying for months; and to the man who walks with his hands behind his back, who finally found a book in Russian to his liking; and to the big guy who again jumped on a three-for-one deal, taking home The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, an Anne Perry mystery, and Close Relations by Susan Isaacs; and to the Frenchman, who chose Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse and a large pictorial on Greece — in French.
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