The JOmania Bookclub

Do you consider Reading important?
Because we think literature is "just swell."
What about John?
We know the question to that one, Of course.

So, that's why we started this area.
To present you with books that we've read
that are related to John one way or another.
Please consider them.
Maybe you'll find them interesting.
We also hope that they can help you
Feel closer to John.
Enjoy.



High Fidelity
by Nick Hornby
published by The Berekly Publishing group

A new film, in which John is re-teamed with director Steven Frears (Grifters). John is writing the screenplay, and will also star in it.

I am just in the middle of reading this book, so I don't know much about it at this point.

(From the book's introduction) Rob is a music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? Rob seeks refuge in the company of the offbeat clerks at his store, who endlessly review their top five films (Reservoir Dogs...); top five Elvis Costello songs ("Alison"...); top five Cheers(the one where Woody sang his stupid song to Kelly...). Rob treis dating a singer whose rendition of "Baby, I love your way" makes him cry. But maybe it's just that he's always wanted to sleep with someone who has a record contract. Then he sees Laura again. And Rob begins to think (awful as it sounds) that life as an episode of thirtysomething, with all the kids and marriages and barbecuesand k.d. lang

CDs that this implies, might not be so bad.

Rick Hornby is a graduate of Cambridge University, and a teacher turned writer. He is a regular contributor to Esquire, The London Sunday Times and the Independent. He has also written , , Time, The New Republic, Premiere and Cosmopoliten. He lives in North London.



Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
published in hard cover and paperback by Little, Brown and co.

I am sure many of you have already read this great book. The main charcter "Holden" is a role that John really wanted to bring to life. Too bad they never made a film adaptation of the book. Anyhow, it really is a great book. The fact that John loves it too, is just another reason to read it.

The narrator of the book Holden, is a 16 year old native New Yorker. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, seconhand description. Holden has just been expeled from his prep school in Pennsylvania just before Christmas. From there he goes "underground" in NYC for 3 days. (from the book's introduction) The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it.

J.D. Salinger was bron in NYC in 1919 and attended Manhattan public Schools, a military academy in Pennsylvania and three colleges (no degrees). "A Happy tourist's year in Europe," he writes, "when I was eighteen and nineteen. In the Army from '42 to '46, most of the time with the Fourth Division. "I've been writing since I was fifteen or so. My short stories have appeared in a number of magazines over the last ten years, mostly - and most happily - in The New Yorker. I worked on the Cathers in the Rye, on and off, for ten years.



Grifters
by Jim Thompson
published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

If you've seen the film (and enjoyed it). You should really read the book. Because not only does it help you understand the film better. But it also has a longer story than the one told in the film. Read it, it'll improve the film for you.

(From the Book's introduction) Roy Dillon, the con man, Lilly Dillon, his mother. Moira Langtry, his mistress. Carol Roberg, his nurse - and victim. Together, these four makes up a quadrangle of greed and perverse love in Jim Thompson's mesmerizing novel of corruption.

James Meyers Thompson was born in Anadarko Oklahoma, in 1906. He begin wrting fiction at a very young age, selling his first story to True Detective when he was only fourteen. In all, Jim Thompson wrote twenty-nine novels and two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Path of Glory). Films based on his novels include Coup de Torchon (Pop. 1280), a serie Noire (A Hell of a Woman), The Getaway, the Killer Inside me, The Grifters, and After Dark, My Sweet. A biography of Jim Thompson is published by Knopf.



Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
by John Berendt
published in hard cover by Random House

The recent Clint Eastwood film was criticized for it's adaptation of the book. You'll find out why if you read this book. Because in my opinion the film brought out the murder story, but was unable to transfrom the books portrayal of Savannah and all of it's Charcters which made the book so colorful. So if you liked the film (Which I hear most of you don't) read the book. It's an interesting account of true crime.

(From the book's introduction) It's a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable charcters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club' the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"' the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiues dealer; the sweet-talking, piano playing con artist' young blakcs dancing the minuets at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and in intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Midnight in the Garden of good and evil: A Savannah Story is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city is certain to become a mocern classic.

John Berendt, former editor of New York magazine and columnist for Esquire, lives in New York.


PS. If you do (or already have) read any of these books, (Or know of any other titles that are related to John) please send an e-mail to us at teriakie@geocities.com, telling us about it. So we can also share it with other visitors of JOmania.
Thank you.


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