For most people, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather is the beginning and end of mafia books, the sole notable entry in a sparse and little-known genre. That’s why it’s helpful that Roberto Dainotto, in The Guardian, published this list, which includes The Godfather, Eric Hobsbawm’s Primitive Rebels, and Alexander Stille’s Excellent Cadavers, among other picks.
Poor Options for Refusal
“Inspiration and Obsession”
Recommended reading: Joyce Carol Oates writes about "Inspiration and Obsession in Life and Literature" for the New York Review of Books.
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POTUS Picks
For its November issue, Wired asks guest editor President Obama for a list of his 10 essential books. The magazine estimates that reading all of them, including James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, will take only eighty-nine hours.
New Joan Didion Memoir
Joan Didion has finished work on a new memoir about aging. It is to be titled Blue Nights and will be published by Knopf in 2011.
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Julie & Julia Revisited
Julie Powell "masters the art of French cooking" on her iPad.
“Heathcliff, it’s me, Cathy, I’ve come home”
"Then, about an hour into the newest version, it struck me: it’s Twilight!...That’s how I would have pitched the film, and the fact that I was thinking of it while watching Heathcliff and Catherine break each other’s hearts was an indication of Arnold’s failure to capture a fraction of Brontë’s genius." The impossibility of filming Wuthering Heights.
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Hayao Miyazaki Retires
Renowned filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki recently announced his retirement, and noted that his forthcoming film The Wind Rises will be his last. In honor of his storytelling legacy, TheLittlePrince.com dug up an old list of the animator’s 50 favorite books.
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People of the Opposite Sex, Am I Right?
The Atlantic has launched a new section -- The Sexes -- that deals with issues of gender.
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