Sunday, October 14, 2007

SoCal Meets NoCal


To celebrate Teen Read Week, on Thursday October 18th, CG Watson, whom I adore and who wrote a fantastic and timely novel called “Quad,” and I will be reading and signing our books at high schools in Chico, which is in Northern California. From 5-6:30 PM we will be at the Chico Barnes & Noble so if you’re in the area, please come by and say hello. We’ll be answering questions too (no math or Latin, please) so come armed with your best stumpers.

On Friday, October 19th, we’ll be bringing the show to the Butte County Library at 3:30 PM so swing on by and (very quietly, since this is a library) say hello.

And in honor of TRW and the LOL theme, I’d just like to mention two of my all-time favorite funny novels, John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” and Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy” (all five books of the trilogy). These are must-reads for anyone looking for something to make them laugh out loud.

So far no one has made Toole’s masterpiece into a movie and I’d just as soon not see them try. It was so wonderful as written that I fear what a filmmaker might do. As for Adams’ series, the BBC did a radio show and a TV show (eh) but I do confess that I loved the 2005 movie version starring Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent and Mos Def as Ford Prefect. I think it helped that Adams wrote the screenplay for it before he died (way too prematurely). It also helped to have the absolutely wacky Sam Rockwell play Zaphod Beeblebrox. Not perfect but some brilliant bits.

Your Hollywood connection,
Leigh