Publishers of historical fiction

See the article in its original context from September 2, 2001 Section Page Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Some days, Jonathan Franzen wrote in the dark. He did so in a spartan studio on 125th Street in East Harlem, behind soundproof walls and a window of double-paned glass. The blinds were drawn. The lights were off. And Franzen, hunched over his keyboard in a scavenged swivel chair held together with duct tape, wore earplugs, earmuffs and a blindfold. ''You can always find the 'home' keys on your computer,'' he says in an embarrassed whisper, explaining how he managed to type under such constraints. ''They have little raised bumps.'' For Franzen, this is the imagination's price, the arduous means by which he conjures a fictional world and reproduces it on the page. ''It's very, very hard to concentrate,'' he says. ''You have to hold your mind free of all the clichés.'' The days … [Read more...] about Jonathan Franzen’s Big Book

0 This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own. Community Corner North Shore Senior Center launches new peer-led learning classes on current issues, literature, culture and society, film, theater and more Alan Blitz, Volunteer Media Writer , Community Contributor Posted | Updated Reply Ready to join your peers in an exciting new learning format at North Shore Senior Center (NSSC)? The new peer-led classes, formerly operated as the Lifelong Learning Institute at National Louis University in Skokie, are now part of NSSC’s Lifelong Learning in a new category of programs called INQUIRE. More than 20 new INQUIRE classes are offered each term, all developed and coordinated by participants. Classes feature current issues, literature, culture and society, and film and theater topics. For a program listing and to register, visit www.nssc.org . “Peer-led learning is a great … [Read more...] about New Peer-Led Learning Classes: Inquire, Explore, Discuss and Have Fun

The rush toward a cashless society has hit the most basic of government transactions — entry fees into national parks. On May 26, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state will be the latest park to stop accepting cash at the entry booth. (RELATED: SUZANNE DOWNING: Biden’s Interior Secretary Dishes Out Icy Revenge On Alaskans) Instead, visitors will be required to pay with credit or debit cards to enter what is a taxpayer-supported recreation area meant for hiking, biking, climbing, camping, exploring and sightseeing. The park management has, in its wisdom, decided that it’s not worth it to collect actual money, a marked change in the relationship between the people and the agencies that oversee the land owned collectively by the people. In 2022, Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan went to a plastic-only payment system. Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming … [Read more...] about SUZANNE DOWNING: We’ve Entered An Era When The US Gov’t Won’t Even Take Its Own Money

What do the original host of the Wheel of Fortune and the author of Fight Club have in common? They’re both acquainted with a member of a neo-pagan group that celebrates a guy who tried to burn down a black church. You read that right. Wolves of Vinland is a small but increasingly well-connected group based outside Lynchburg, Virginia. Members of the group—as well as their admirers in the white supremacist Internet-sphere—are surprisingly candid about their practices, beliefs, and goals. Some of the group’s activities are par for the course, at least as far as neo-pagans are concerned. But other elements of their community are deeply disturbing, especially in light of the recent arrests of two neo-pagan white supremacists who lived just two hours north of them and allegedly conspired to bomb black churches. The group has been around for about a decade, and is helmed by two brothers, Paul and Matthias Waggener. “Honor and being a good man is based around never making … [Read more...] about Inside Virginia’s Creepy White-Power Wolf Cult

0 Politics & Government A program to help mobile home park residents, with $33.5 million in the bank, got a huge revamp last year because nobody was using it. CalMatters , News Partner Posted Reply By Manuela Tobias, CalMatters CALIFORNIA — Mobile home residents in California face an outsize risk of failing utility systems, flooding and fires as a result of infrastructure that frequently hasn’t been updated or repaired in decades. In 1984, California passed a law to help remedy this: a loan program, paid into by the residents themselves, to buy and in later iterations, fix their parks. But that solution, for the last 10 years, has helped only one of California’s 4,500 mobile home parks. State administrators approved a single loan application, in 2021, from a fund now worth $33.5 million, the state’s Housing and Community Development Department confirmed to CalMatters. The loan went to a non-profit organization … [Read more...] about CA Program To Fix Mobile Home Parks Approved 1 Application In 10 Years

One of Britain’s most famous comedians has defended Boris Johnson’s “joke” about the Islamic burqa face veil, calling it “funny” and “an almost perfect simile”. Rowan Atkinson, the man behind Mr Bean and Blackadder , which frequently mocked historical and religious figures, said that the former foreign secretary should not have to apologise for offending Muslims. Other comedians such as Jonathan Pie creator Tom Walker, promptly chimed in with their own satirical takes: https://twitter.com/JonathanPieNews/status/1027835411819913216 Mr Johnson, a former two-time Mayor of London, compared women who wear the burqa to “bank robbers” and questioned why they would “go around looking like letter boxes” in a Telegraph column earlier this week. In a letter to The Times this Friday, Mr Atkinson wrote: “Sir, As a lifelong beneficiary of the freedom to make jokes about religion, I do think that Boris Johnson’s joke about wearers of the burka resembling letterboxes is a … [Read more...] about Rowan Atkinson Backs Boris Johnson’s Right to ‘Cause Offence’ on Burqa