Wednesday, August 29, 2018


He is one of the world’s most successful crime writers, selling more than 100 million copies of his novels and short stories worldwide.  Now Lee Child is planning major television adaptations of his Jack Reacher books after fans complained to him about Tom Cruise’s portrayal of the larger-than-life hero in two Hollywood movies.  Reacher, a private investigator and drifter, is described in Child’s novels as physically towering, measuring in at 6ft 5in.  Cruise, however, is said to be only 5ft 7in.  “I’ve got tens of thousands of letters saying they didn’t like Cruise because he’s too small, basically,” said Child.  “Part of Reacher’s appeal is that he’s very intimidating.  Even without doing anything, if he walks into a room, people are a little bit uneasy.  It was felt that, for all his virtues, Cruise didn’t represent that.  So the readers were cross from the beginning.”  Child hopes that a deal will be signed by November 2018 for productions that will devote between 10 and 12 hours to each book.  Asked about the cast, he said:  “That’s the great thing about television.  It’s much less star-driven than feature films.  So it doesn’t need to be a so-called A-list guy.”  Fan letters are part of a vast archive of correspondence, notes and manuscripts that Child is making available to the public for the first time.  It will be announced this week that he is transferring everything to the British Archive for Contemporary Writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA).  The archive boasts the literary holdings of Doris Lessing, Malcolm Bradbury and JD Salinger, among others, while the university has an international reputation for creative writing through its MA, with Ian McEwan among its alumni.  He has sent more than 40 enormous boxes filled with papers spanning his career.  There is so much material it will take more than a year to catalogue.  Justine Mann, archivist at UEA, said:  “For the first time, creative writers, researchers and scholars of literature will have access to material that allows them to trace Child’s writing process and, through textual analysis of initial and subsequent drafts, identify some of the secrets behind his incredible success.”  Coventry-born Child became a global publishing phenomenon after his first Reacher book in 1997.  The 23rd novel in the series, Past Tense, will be published in November 2018.  The others have been translated into 49 languages.  Yet he did not start writing until he was 40, after being made redundant from his 18-year career in television:  “The real drama in my story is having been fired from Granada.  That’s the real rags-to-riches part of it.  I managed to do something afterwards … I’m the lucky one.”  Child said he had not held anything back from the archives:  “With a serious institution like UEA, which does teach the nitty-gritty of writing, you can’t present a curated archive because it would necessarily give the wrong impression.”  The archive includes a rejection slip from a literary agent, who will no doubt be kicking himself or herself for failing to sense his potential.  Dalya Alberge  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/26/lee-child-jack-reacher-novels-on-tv-tom-cruise-archive-public

The pluot is a cross between a plum and an apricot.  You might also find the fruit labeled plumcotaprium, or apriplum.  Find a recipe to use as a dessert or as a coffee cake.  The streusel topping is optional, but it adds a nice crunchy texture to the cake.   Find recipe by Diana Rattray at https://www.thespruceeats.com/pluot-cake-or-plum-cake-3059293

Little Miss Muffet Sat on a tuffet, Eating her curds and whey; Along came a spider, Who sat down beside her, And frightened Miss Muffet away.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46957/little-miss-muffet

Curds and whey are a product of cheese-making.  When rennet, an enzyme derived from a newborn ruminant is added to milk, the milk curdles.  These solid, curdled lumps are the curds.  The whey is the liquid byproduct of the curdling process.  Most people first heard the term curds and whey in the nursery rhyme, Little Miss Muffet, a nursery rhyme that dates back to the sixteenth century, though it was first published in 1805.  In the rhyme, Miss Muffet sits on a tuffet eating her curds and whey.  Today’s cottage cheese is similar to the curds and whey that would have been popular four hundred years ago when the nursery rhyme was written.  However, cottage cheese is washed, salted and well-drained, and many believe that curds and wheywould have contained more whey than cottage cheese contains.  The method of curdling curds and whey is not known, an acid such as vinegar or lemon juice may be used to curdle milk, which affects the taste.  http://grammarist.com/phrase/curds-and-whey/

Ricotta is Italian for “twice cooked” or “to cook again” and is traditionally made with the whey byproduct of making another cheese, such as mozzarella or a hard cheese.  The whey is heated, with or without additional vinegar, and the new ricotta is strained and seasoned.  Find recipes at https://smittenkitchen.com/2011/06/rich-homemade-ricotta/

Toledo, Ohio’s Momentum Features Glass, Music, Art and Makers in Free Festival, September 13–15, 2018  Toledo’s Promenade Park will be transformed by dynamic interactive art projects, art exhibitions and performances, innovative music across a spectrum of genres, and a Mini Maker Faire.  The Momentum festival will take place September 13-15 in Toledo, Ohio’s riverfront Promenade Park.  Featuring large-scale art installations including Fantastic Planet by Parer Studio and the Compound Camera by Pneuhaus as well as five specially commissioned interactive artworks from regional artists, the festival promises a wide variety of hands-on art experiences.  The Momentum Exhibition will highlight Toledo’s rich history as the birthplace of the studio glass movement and current knowledge base in the glass industry.  Musical guests and Daptone recording artists Orquesta Akokán will bring their big band collective of the musicians hailing from Havana.  The Toledo Symphony Orchestra will perform “Water Concerto” by composer Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).  A wide range of regional and local musicians and performers will be active in the park throughout the festival.  The Toledo Mini Maker Faire will showcase more than 20 makers with demonstrations and hands-on activities.  Maker Faire is the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth—a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker Movement.  Makers range from tech enthusiasts to crafters to homesteaders to scientists to garage tinkerers of all ages and backgrounds.

Prepare to step into Hogwarts at Livraria Lello bookstore in Porto, Portugal.  The Livraria Lello bookstore in Porto is one of the world's oldest bookstores, frequently ranked as one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world, and a top place to visit in Portugal.  Opened in 1906, the bookstore has once a haunt of the city's literary scene and many say it was a direct inspiration for JK Rowling and her Harry Potter books.  Rowling lived in the city from 1991 to 1993 and was a frequent customer.  Thank you, Muse reader! 

The Lello Bookstore, also known as Livraria Lello & Irmão and Livraria Chardron, is a bookstore located in civil parish of Cedofeita, Santo Ildefonso, Sé, Miragaia, São Nicolau e Vitória, in the northern Portuguesemunicipality of Porto.  Along with Bertrand in Lisbon, it is one of the oldest bookstores in Portugal and frequently rated among the top bookstores in the world (placing third in lists by guidebook publisher Lonely Planet and The Guardian).  Beginning in July 2015, the bookstore began requesting entrance fees for visitors.  On 21 April 2016, an artistic mural was erected to conceal the scaffolding placed on the facade of the building, during its restoration, by graffiti writer Dheo and colleague Pariz One.   Dheo painted the central area of the mural with a pile of old books, a lit candle and a bottle of Port wine, while the rest was painted by Pariz One with geometric shapes, referring to the stained glass inside the bookstore.  The work took two months to produce.  On 31 July, following the restoration, the main facade of the building was uncovered, showing the laboratory-tested recovered primitive gray.  The bookstore was frequented by JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, when she taught English in Porto and is reported to be an inspiration for her writing.  Read more and see pictures at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livraria_Lello

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1943  August 29, 2018 

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