As you might have noticed if you’ve visited here before, I enjoy reading obituaries. And not just those of the famous, but also those unlikely to make the front pages.

The obituary for Virginia Durr, which appeared in a recent issue of the Washington Post, was particularly fascinating. Here’s why—

I found it odd for the notice to mention within its first paragraph that Durr died “on the 61 anniversary of the arrest of Rosa Parks.” After all, many people die on the anniversaries of famous events. So I was curious why that particular event would be a fact worth bringing up.

The second paragraph provides an explanation … managing at the same time to make me even more curious.

It turns out that Durr’s parents were the ones who “bailed Rose Parks out of jail after she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus on December 1, 1955.”

Was the date of her death a coincidence? Or something more?

Because apparently, this action by Durr’s parents, who were civil rights organizers, “took a toll” on her, as the obituary put it, and led to her being “shunned,” taken out of school, and sent to a private school “up north.”

Was the date so infused with emotion for Virginia Durr that considering the anniversary this year caused her fatal heart attack? The obituary doesn’t make that connection, and the Internet provides no answer.

But I wonder …

The Washington Post covered a controversy today concerning a long-dead fantasy icon whose legacy is being reconsidered due to racist opinions extreme even for his day—and no, this time I’m not talking about H.P. Lovecraft.

Lovecraft’s views, as you’ve already heard if you’ve visited here before, have been the cause of uncomfortable but very necessary conversations within the fantasy community. And now another community is being forced to have similar uncomfortable conversations.

Because it seems the Oneida Indian Nation is about to open a $20 million casino which will pay homage to a fantasy writer who, in addition to entertaining millions, also called for genocide.

L. Frank Baum.

That’s right. The author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (more…)

If you picked up today’s Washington Post this morning and turned to the Style section, you’d have seen a familiar name—mine!

Ron Charles, editor of the Post’s Book World, had asked me to review Ray Bradbury Unbound, the second installment in Jonathan R. Eller’s projected three-volume biography. (The first volume, Becoming Ray Bradbury, was reviewed by Michael Dirda.)

The book was not all what I expected, for it was filled with heartbreak and disappointment, and sprinkled with such phrases as “missed opportunities,” “creative dead ends,” “never materialized,” “another deeply disappointing experience,” and “marked an ultimately irreversible decline.” Perhaps a reviewer who’s not also a writer struggling to get stories written in the face of life’s endless distractions would have reacted differently.

You can read my review online at the Washington Post here. And if you do track down Eller’s book—which is certainly worth doing—please let me know how you felt about this second stage in Bradbury’s career.

I’ve always loved reading obituaries, and not just those of the famous, but of the rest of us, too. So in addition to reading the lengthy write-ups newspaper editors assemble, I always scan the pages of smaller paid ads families insert to remember the deceased. Which is why I found myself reading the obituaries from yesterday’s Washington Post while eating lunch today.

I like to see the photos that have been chosen (sometimes of the memorialized both young and old), the nicknames (this issue included Gigi, Duke, and Cootie), and the odd facts (Edward Ramond Seibert “participated in field tests on the rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used to assassinate President Kennedy”).

As I scanned the obits today, I noticed a photo that was quite … unusual. How odd, I thought, that someone had chosen, in the midst of page after page of dignified photos, to be remembered dressed up like a pro wrestler. But when I looked more closely, I saw that—Hey! That’s not just someone dressed like a pro wrestler—that is a pro wrestler!

Don’t know who Big John Studd was? Then you’d better check out both parts of this classic match! (more…)

Michael Dirda reviewed the biography Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic last week, but I’m only just getting around to it.

I used to think I’d like to meet George Orwell, but after reading the following paragraph … not so much.

Actually, I don’t think I’d have liked either of these guys.

Scammell relates this telling exchange between the author of Darkness at Noon and the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four: George Orwell said, “When I lie in my bath in the morning, which is the best moment of the day, I think of tortures for my enemies.” Koestler replied, “That’s funny, because when I’m lying in my bath I think of tortures for myself.”

Both of them apparently had seductive personalities, but when you got within their orbits—watch out!

And speaking of quips exchanged between authors, here’s another one recently related in the pages of the Washington Post, this one from Erich Segal’s obituary:

While jogging in New York’s Central Park, Mr. Segal once recalled, he saw novelist Philip Roth and said, “I admire your work.”

“And I admire your running,” Roth replied.

What do you think? An actual incident or only an apocryphal one?

I read a Classic Peanuts reprint in the paper today that brought back memories of 9/11. (Actually, I was catching up with Thursday’s Washington Post. See—I’m behind on all of my reading!)

I know that’s not what Charles Schultz had on his mind when he drew this particular strip sometime in the ’80s. And yet, the first panel of the pair brought it all back.

Tell me—is it just me? If you had seen this without my pointing out the unintended allusion, would your mind also have been sent back to 9/11?

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to come across a mention of towers being knocked over without that horrible day coming back.

You can see the full strip, with its far more innocent punchline, below. (more…)

Yesterday’s Washington Post printed a book review of Wesley Brown’s novel Push Comes to Shove. While the novel sounded intriguing, the most fascinating thing I learned from the review wasn’t the book’s content. Rather, it was the book’s price.

It’s free.

Here’s how James A. Miller explained it in the review’s final paragraph:

It is the second book from the Concord Free Press, which publishes novels and gives them away free, with the following injunction: “By taking a copy, you agree to give away money to a local charity, someone who needs it, or a stranger on the street. Where the money goes and how much you give—that’s your call.” It’s an innovative publishing effort that one-ups Abbie Hoffman’s yippie manifesto Steal This Book.

Free books? What kind of publishing model is that? As the Concord Free Press explains at its site:

Let’s get this straight right from the start—we’re not proposing free books as a cure for what ails modern publishing. That would be stupid. We like books. We buy books. We don’t think all books should be free—just ours.

That said, we’re dedicated to a different kind of publishing, one that “reconceptualizes the very goals of publishing.” We’re interested in making waves, challenging assumptions, and re-invigorating the book, which isn’t dead yet, by the way.

Think about it this way. No matter who published them or how good they are, most books go on a familiar trajectory—new, used, shelved permanently, dusty. Ours keep going from hand to hand, generating donations along the way. Readers are generally good people. We give them a chance to get a great book for free—and encourage contributions to organizations and individuals in their own community or further afield.

You can get a free copy of Push Comes to Shove sent to you by providing your e-mail address and promising to take part in charitable giving as per the company’s suggestions.

Not quite sure what to make of it all, but supposedly more than $75,000 has already been dispersed. And the company’s next novel, The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, will be available in October.

Richard Thompson gets us ready for summer reading with his recent cartoon in the Washington Post. I’ve always loved his work, but this one particularly struck a chord.

If you also like the one below, follow this link to see it and many of his other cartoons at the Washington Post site.

Yesterday’s Washington Post included the following correction on page 2:

The Second Reading column in the March 6 Style section mistakenly said writer James Salter is dead.

I hope that I will be around to see the same sort of thing written about me someday!

Back on October 25 at The Washington Post, the paper’s Style Invitational department put out a call for comically badly written endings to novels, in an inversion of the annual Bulwer Lytton contest.

And now they’ve announced the winners.

Here’s the ending that was judged to be the worst:

As the wail of the nearing sirens shook him awake, Todd rose from the charred remains of Rensfield Manor, wiped the ectoplasm from his brow and, stuffing the Amulet of Valtor inside his shirt, gazed ruefully at the venom-encrusted Sword of Darjan, realizing that this long night wasn’t over yet, because he still had a heck of a lot of explaining to do.

But I much preferred this one of the three runners up:

Oh, and by the way, Chapters 3, 8, 10 and part of 16 were all dreams, in case you hadn’t caught on.