screenplays

Litstack Recs: The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries & LaRose

The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries, by Emma Thompson Emma Thompson’s diary tracks the making of the award-winning Sense and Sensibility with Thompson’s trademark dry wit and in fascinating detail. The 1995 film, directed by Ang Lee, garnered seven Oscar nominations, with Thompson winning the Award for Best Adapted […]

LitStack Recs: Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries & Brotherhood of the Wheel

The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries, by Emma Thompson There’s enough left of summer to fit in at least one more light read, and Emma Thompson’s diary of the making of the award-winning Sense and Sensibility is a perfect choice. The 1995 film, directed by Ang Lee, would garner […]

Birthdays

On this day, May 17, in 1939, Gary Paulsen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The author of numerous YA coming of age/wilderness tales (Hatchet, Escape from Fire Mountain, Dogsong) didn’t meet his own father, a career military officer, until he and his mother moved to the Philippines when he was seven years old (they returned to the US two years later). At 14 he ran away to join the carnival to escape his alcoholic parents; he struggled himself with alcoholism but simplified his life to keep his demons at bay. In 1983, at age 44, he and his team of dogs ran the 1,150 mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska which he wrote about in the gripping Winterdance; he later had to abandon the sport due to heart issues. Today, he turns 82.

Birthdays

On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.