R.I.P. JD. Salinger

Sad news today about one of the most interesting and popular authors of all time. From The New York Times Blog:

J.D. Salinger, the elusive and enigmatic author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” has died, The Associated Press reported. He was 91 and lived in Cornish, N.H.

The A.P. cited a statement from Mr. Salinger’s literary representative, saying that he died of natural causes at his home.

Published in 1951, “The Catcher in the Rye” became Mr. Salinger’s most famous work with its distinctive depiction of its angry, iconoclastic teenage protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Mr. Salinger frequently dealt with the subject of precocious youth in his short stories of the Glass family, as well as “Franny and Zooey,” a collection of two long short stories. He had not published a new work since 1965, and lived in near-total isolation, having refused the attention of the literary world and the news media for decades.

-Rest in peace...

R.I.P. Robert B. Parker

One of my grandfather's favorite authors (famous for his Spenser series of books, and the Jesse Stone ones too, as well as the writer of the book that became the movie Appaloosa) has died. Here's part of the obituary from The New York Times:

Robert B. Parker, the best-selling mystery writer who created Spenser, a tough, glib, Boston private detective who was the hero of nearly 40 novels, died on Monday at home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 77.

The cause was a heart attack, said his agent of 37 years, Helen Brann. She said Mr. Parker had been thought to be in splendid health, and that he died at his desk, working on a book. He wrote every single day, she said.

Mr. Parker wrote more than 60 books all told, including westerns and young adult novels, but he churned out entertaining detective stories with a remarkable alacrity that made him one of the country’s most popular writers. In recent years he created two new protagonists, Jesse Stone, an alcoholic ex-ballplayer turned small-town chief of police, who has been featured in nine novels since 1997 (including one to be published in February), and Sunny Randall, a fashion-conscious, unlucky-in-love, gun-toting female private eye. But it was Spenser, spelled “like the poet,” as the character is wont to point out — his first name is never revealed — who was Mr. Parker’s signature creation.

-Rest in peace...

R.I.P. Frank McCourt

The author of "Angela's Ashes" was 78...read the obit here.

Rest In Peace...

The author of The Hours has an interesting new project...

...which you can read about here, from Variety:
Screen Gems prevailed in a spec auction for "Beautiful Girl," a scary genre thriller from a most unlikely source: Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Hours."
Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing through their Red Wagon banner.
Story concerns a shy but brainy high school girl who returns for senior year after having slimmed down six dress sizes. She finds herself flirting with the handsome English lit teacher, but the mutual crush turns deadly when the teacher's obsession with the student compels him to exact maniacal revenge on everyone who was cruel to her.
Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper met Cunningham through Wick and was surprised to find a genre junkie, even if his love of blood-soaked movies didn't seep into his books, or scripts like "A Home at the End of the World."
Cunningham said he has always been a huge genre fan and, when sitting with Wick, would argue such basics as whether the second "Hostel" was as good as the first one.
"While I was writing about Virginia Wolff, my mind was never far removed from the idea of girls in bikinis being hacked up by guys wearing hockey masks, and I vowed that if I ever had a good idea, I would write one of these scary movies," Cunningham told Daily Variety.
"We've become such genre paisans, and when I showed the script to Doug, he showed it to Clint, and it was instant love," Cunningham said. "This summer, I will finish a novel where nobody gets anything gouged out of them, but my plan is to then write another idea I have for an actual monster movie. As it turns out, we sometimes find we can do more than one thing in our lives."
-Definitely something different...