A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Publish these! Fictitious books we wish were real
WITH ALAN PARTRIDGE'S memoir I, Partridgeflying off the shelves, maybe the time has come for some other books by fictitious characters.
A few years ago I was watching a classic Simpsonsepisode with my brother. When Bart saves Mr Burns's life by donating blood, the newly invigorated tycoon gets started on his epic biography, Will There Ever be a Rainbow? "That'd be a deadly book," said my sibling.
And he’s right. Mr Burns has led an extraordinary life: abandoning his parents as a boy to live with a strange billionaire; fighting in the second World War for the Allies (but also befriending Nazis); inheriting an atom mill; getting to know Nixon and Elvis; pioneering international air travel (while stealing the only ever trillion-dollar bill); surviving a baby-inflicted gunshot wound; and, of course, establishing a nuclear power plant. It would read like a cross between the satirical humour of Well Remembered Days, by Arthur Mathews, and a sweeping historical epic.
In other fake characters’ books, there’s the appeal of the unreliable narrator. The CIA agent Osbourne Cox (played by John Malkovich) in Burn after Reading spends a lot of time on his “mem-wahs”. We know that he has an inaccurately high opinion of himself, so it would be fun trying to read between the lines, sifting the truth from his half-truths.
It's not just writing fiction that attracts these characters. In the US version of The Office, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is penning the ill-advised corporate book Somehow I Manage.This would be a great read, not least because Scott's little speeches in the show already sound as if they're from a disastrous self-help course: "The atmosphere that I've tried to create here is that I'm a friend first and a boss second, and probably an entertainer third."
Often the appeal of these books would be much simpler. For example, Romancing the Stone, written by Kathleen Turner's character in the film of the same name, seems a potentially lively love story/swashbuckler. The passages of the book Emma Thompson is writing in Stranger Than Fictionare quite elegant, and what we hear of the hero's massive mission statement (written by the film's director, Cameron Crowe) in Jerry Maguireis rousing.
As we've seen with the Partridge book, when we're lucky these works break the fourth wall and appear in real-life shops. The Mad Mencharacter Roger Sterling (played by John Slattery) has now written a memoir, Sterling's Gold, and AMC, the TV company that makes the show, has seen fit to publish it. Sterling fought in the Korean War and followed that by working in the family business, a pioneering, influential ad agency. The book's main selling point is the ad man's cheeky dry wit. Sample quote: "When God closes a door, he opens a dress."
JOE GRIFFIN
Same bloody teen formula
THIS WEEK the second-last instalment of the colossal Twilightfranchise hits the cinemas, with the final book, Breaking Dawn, being split into two parts, à la Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
So what's next for hundreds of millions of screaming teens? The successes of both Harry Potterand now Twilightshow that a formula that works is something fantasy-based with brooding teenagers at its core. So how about these?
VAMPIRE ACADEMY
In keeping with the toothy theme that has bred Twilightand the TV series True Blood, this six-book series of teen novels features a half-human/half-vampire young woman who acts as a bodyguard for her best vampire friend at a Hogwarts-type institution for vampire trainees. Preger Entertainment is currently developing the idea for screen.
ARTEMIS FOWL
With the eighth and final book in this action-packed fairy series due out next year, Eoin Colfer’s franchise seems ripe for the picking. Jim Sheridan and Kirsten Sheridan are developing it for the screen, but preproduction has yet to be scheduled.
THE PASSAGE
It’s yet more vampires, apart from one surviving character, Amy, who has to save the human race.
Ridley Scott bought the film rights three years before the book (the first in a trilogy) was even published. The second novel is out next year.
NOUGHTS AND CROSSES
This series of five books by Malorie Blackman riffs on a racist futuristic setting. The critics love the series, and the first novel has already been adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Could a film be next?
THE HUNGER GAMES
This is a trilogy by Suzanne Collins set in a rather unnerving post-apocalyptic society in which an annual event, the Hunger Games, merges reality television and a Battle Royale-type fight. Lionsgate will release the film adaptation next year.
UNA MULLALLY
Selling your mp3s?: the digital aftermarket
WHO SAID mp3s were disposable? A new website, redigi.com, is attempting to move the old-fashioned model of trading second-hand singles and albums into the digital world.
The website allows you to sell old, unwanted mp3s and buy “used” ones – much like taking your old records and CDs to a second-hand music shop, and trading in songs you don’t listen to anymore for new ones.
It’s a novel approach to addressing the disposability and duplication of existing mp3s, even if the format itself is rooted in an old-school model. Selling one unwanted song earns you 20 cent (in US dollars) for every song you list as for sale, and an extra 12 cent once it sells. New songs cost 79 cent although the more you sell, the more you can buy.
ReDigi hopes to prosper on the idea that most people listen to only a fraction of the music they actually have stored on their computers and mp3 players, so by turning in the endless mp3s they doesn’t listen to, can update their music library in a cheap and legal way.
The “recycled digital music market place” as they call it, allows customers to buy and sell music by downloading the ReDigi software, identifying a song as for sale, which the site then uploads to the ReDigi community and erases the file from your computer.
Once it’s sold, you gain credits, which you can use to buy other songs uploaded by other users. The service is only available in the US at the moment, so European users will have to wait and see if it catches on.–
UNA MULLALY
