#mailer books

[quotessentially]

From Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park

[koshigurajumy]

古本屋における久しぶりの大収穫 ノーマン・メイラー 「ぼく自身のための広告」 Norman Mailer - Advertisement for Myself, 1959

僕は、二十世紀の文学のあるものについて、生理的嫌悪を感ずるのは、自分に関心を持ちすぎるというのが、とても耐えられないのだ。ノーマン・メイラーの小説を読むと、なんでこの男はこんなに自分に興味を持っているのか。

『ぼく自身のための広告』 ね、あれなんか読んでも、なかにはずいぶんおもしろい部分もあるし、小説家としてすばらしい才能もあると思うが、こんなに自分のことばかり話す男はおれはきらいだと思うのだよ。

それは告白というものではなくて、告白よりもっと追いつめられたものだな。告白というものは、白鳥が一回叫ぶように、やはり一回だけ叫ぶのが告白だと思うけれどもね。ああ年中、自分のことに興味があっては、しょうがないと思うのだよ。

三島由紀夫 『対談集 源泉の感情』 より

[litsnaps]

[blackros78]

Just as a man serving a long sentence in prison will begin to live in despair about the time he recognizes that the effort to keep his sanity is going to leave him less of a man, so a fighter goes through something of the same calculation. The prisoner and the fighter must give up some part of what is best in him (since what is best for any human is more designed for prison - or training - than an animal for the zoo). Sooner or later the fighter recognizes something in his psyche is paying too much for the training. Boredom is not only deadening his personality but killing his soul.

Norman Mailer (The Fight)

[artbookisland]

What I’m reading these days #5

Previously:

* What I’m reading these days #01 * What I’m reading these days #02 * What I’m reading these days #03 * What I’m reading these days #04

Hey everyone, I hope you're doing all right! It's been a long while since I wrote one of these posts, almost 5 years actually... Yeah, recently I've been more focused on sharing scans than texts like these or artbook reviews, sorry!

Anway, these days I'm reading four cool books at once so I figured I could make you (re)discover something, so let's go!

What a surprise, yes, I'm reading Dragon Ball again, last time was 6 years ago so I thought I could revisit this cool universe that always brings me back to my childhood. In France we have a "Perfect Edition" which has a bigger format than usual mangas, a new translation and all the original colour pages so it's a great pleasure to read! I'm always in awe when looking at Toriyama's watercolours, they were absolutely beautiful.

I'm not going to dive much further into Dragon Ball because I've already talked about it a lot, maybe take a look at this old article. 

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Now something completely different, if you are an avid TV show enthusiast, you might have watched the sci-fi show The Expanse. I discovered it after a few seasons had already aired and really enjoyed it (except maybe the last two seasons which had some flaws in my opinion). I quickly learned that before being on TV it was a very good series of books by a couple of authors writing under a single name: James S.A. Corey. So naturally I started buying and reading these books, loved them and realised that the adaptation was quite good. It took some years but I eventually finished reading the nine books and at that moment, just when I thought I was out of this amazing universe, I saw that there was a collection of The Expanse short stories published under the title Memory's Legion.

So that's what I'm reading right now and just like the rest of the series, it's very cool and definitely fills some interesting holes in the Expanse's lore (plus I always enjoy good sci-fi short stories)! You will learn a little bit more about the guy who came up with the Epstein drive that made space travel a lot easier in the story, the backstory of a cruel but intriguing character (Cortazar), the life of a young Amos (even before he was called Amos), etc. It's a very good read if, like me, you've finished the main series and still want more!

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Let's keep our heads towards the sky for this next book: Moonfire by Norman Mailer. I stumbled upon it in a bookstore in Lyon, France and the cover immediately caught my eye. It's a small but thick book which contains as much text as photos from NASA's Apollo 11 mission (the first time humans beings walked on the Moon back in 1969). Being an astronomy and space exploration fan I just had to buy it and I'm glad I did!

Actually I thought it would be a historico-scientific recollection of this incredible event of the XXth century but that's because I didn't know Norman Mailer! I will let you read his Wikipedia page but he wasn't "just" a writer, he also was a journalist, a poet, an essayist and so on. So instead of simply telling us what happened in that important period of human history, he includes himself in the story as a character and shares his thoughts about the situations, the people, the technology, etc. It makes for a surprising yet very interesting read as he takes this unique opportunity to analyze, criticize even our modern society and more specifically the USA's society of the time.

I'm about halfway through the book and I really enjoy Mailer's way of telling the story but also the incredible photos of the event, most of them taken during the mission itself by astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, I cannot stop looking at these shots and wonder what their experience was like. They freakin' walked on another celestial body (actually only two of them did while Collins was busy being the loneliest person in the history of Human life, flying above the far side of the Moon)!

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A couple of my friends work at a local comic book shop and thanks to them I often discover very cool comics, mangas and bandes dessinées (what we call european comics in France). Also it's worth mentioning that the french publisher Urban Comics (they publish a lot of american comics here) is trying to make a selection of their books more affordable and compact for people who don't have much money or space in their home that they can dedicate to comic books. And so in this effort they have started a collection called "Urban Nomad" in which all prices are below 10€ (approx. 10 USD). The first one I picked is Watchmen.

I have watched the movie adaptation when it came out... 14 years ago (ouch!) and really liked it but kind of forgot about it, which is a good thing because now I can re-discover the story in its original format: on paper!

And what a story! Since the first pages I was sucked in by the strength of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. The story is so good and feels so contemporary that I have to keep reminding myself that this was made in 1986-87! If you don't know anything about Watchmen I won't spoil it for you but the story takes place in a version of our world where masked vigilantes are already has-been, one of the reasons being the accidental transformation of a man into a God-like version of himself. Because of this event, the course of history is different from the one we know and live in, and in this context one of the few remaining masked vigilantes (pictured on the cover) is investigating a series of murders among his former colleagues. This is all extremely well integrated into the politico-historic context of the time (though once again it's somewhat different from our reality) and it's easy to recognize the quality of Moore and Gibbons' work!

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Well, that's it for now, I hope you've discovered something, if so let me know! And I'll try not to wait five more years to write a "What I'm reading these days" again. See ya!

[travsd]

The Norman Mailer Centennial

100 years ago today saw the birth of Norman Mailer (Nachem Malech Mailer, 1923-2007). I was rash enough to seem dismissive of Mailer in my recent Gore Vidal post, including both authors among a small set of so-called public intellectuals of the television age who failed to impress me. In Mailer’s case, his public image tended to overshadow his literary one, but honestly my main point was more…

[justforbooks]

Harlot's Ghost (1991) is a fictional chronicle of the Central Intelligence Agency by Norman Mailer. The characters are a mixture of real people and fictional figures. At over 1,300 pages, the book is Mailer's longest.

At first it appears to be the autobiography of Harry Hubbard, which is made up of anecdotes of his life and actions with the CIA, covert operations in Uruguay, the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Mafia in the 60s and the assassination of JFK. The very beginning of the book starts with Harry being told by a friend that his mentor Hugh Montague (a top level CIA officer) has either been assassinated or committed suicide on his boat. He then is told by his wife, Kittredge (a CIA member), that she has been unfaithful and is in love with another high level CIA intelligence officer. Under perceived threat of his own assassination by the CIA he escapes to Moscow. It is there that he rereads in a hotel room the dense manuscript of his life at the CIA which he has documented and kept secret over his career. At that point, the book really begins. It details the life of a CIA intelligence officer who has connections to the highest levels of the CIA. It raises basic questions about the fight against Communism and goes into the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Missile Crisis and, perhaps most importantly, raises questions about the assassination of JFK and who was ultimately responsible.

Mailer had planned to write a sequel – Harlot's Grave – but other projects intervened and the sequel was never written. Harlot's Ghost ends with the words "To be continued".

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[indiepressrevolution]

Hey IPR! First, @resident-corvid, you're awesome. Thanks for everything you do for IPR, it's been a blast working with you. My question is: What can we as publishers and creators do to help IPR be even more successful? Or, put another way: what would you like to see creators doing more of? What do we forget about frequently?

Hi! Thank you so much, it's always lovely working with you as well.

This is an interesting question! Mostly because IPR's success does entirely come from our publishers that we represent, it's because y'all create such incredible and interesting games that we exist at all.

As for what we'd like to see creators do more of / what they forget about, the first thing that comes to mind is packaging! In two ways, the first being how to actually safely package your games so that they make it through the postal system unscathed, and secondly how to package your games so they stay together in boxes and on shelves. I'm going to put the rest under a read more to avoid clogging up dashes.

For the first, we actually just made a video about this over on the IPR YouTube channel, where we go through a bunch of different types and quantities of games and show how we package them. The main things are to always have at least two layers of protection, and to pack your games so nothing moves. The postal system will toss your packages around, and they will put 50 lb boxes on top of your poor game.

Essentially you have to imagine that every package is going through The Horrors before they end up at their destination, and plan accordingly.

And for the second, this is especially relevant if your game has extras like a bookmark or other removable inserts, or if it comes in a set of several zines. Think about how these things will sit on a shelf in a game store, how they'll handle being picked up and flipped through. It's always a good idea to shrink wrap your games, but at the very least every component should be attached to eachother so there's less chance of a piece getting lost along the way.

A couple examples: Wickedness is a set of three zines about a coven of witches struggling to hold the worlds (and themselves) together. It gets shrink wrapped, which not only keeps the three zines together, but also protects the gorgeous gold foil on the front covers from getting scratched and damaged.

The deluxe version of Rampant, a module for Mothership® featuring the mysterious Geppetto station, holds all its components in a transparent paper sleeve. Customers can still see through to read the description on the back and the artwork on the front, and there's no chance for any of the pamphlets or map to go missing.

Lastly, the Strollplaying Games Trio Pack is a set of three notebook-esque zines, each containing a solo game to be played while walking about. They're held together with just a simple paper band. Something like this, or a rubber band (just make sure its not tight enough that its going to damage your games), are easy ways to keep your games together as they're being sold.

We've also got more tips on our Publisher Tips page on the IPR website! Our goal is always to support indie game creators however we can, so if you've got a question that isn't answered here or on that page, please do ask! If I don't know, someone else on the IPR crew will.

[stareena]

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars Recommended to me by my Mother, The Executioner's Song was an in depth look at the justice system in America in the 1970s. Gary Gilmore is paroled to Utah from Oregon. He meets a girl and that's when it goes all wrong. Two people are killed and the state of Utah is baying for blood. When he is convicted, Gary Gilmore accepts his fate and demands to be executed for his crimes, making America blanch. With executions still legal in Utah (at this time), it still have been some years since the last person was executed in America, creating all sorts of powerful reactions. To be honest, I was bored for most of the story. It is based upon true events and the way it was presented was, bizarre. For me there seemed way too much backstory for a lot of the minor characters that had very little to do with the overall story. Yet there were times when I found myself backtracking pages trying to figure out when a new character came on the scene and what their story was, only finding no backstory for them. Looking back I wonder if they were people that didn't offer information beyond their involvement with the cases. If you read this book, make a flow chart of all the people names, especially in the second half of the book. I believe there are about 17 lawyers that are mentioned throughout and if you are not paying strict attention, you'll be lost. Also a lay person's knowledge of law is helpful, though that was handled VERY well in the book, explaining the legality and how it differs in Utah. Now, all that said, the book has something like 1100 pages, (not a light weekend read) yet it wasn't until the last 50 pages (and Acknowledgement) that I really go into the story. It was very fascinating watching how so many people that were involved with the main character changed and how they ended up. The events at the end of the book were eye opening to say the least. A front row seat to something I never thought to witness. Yet despite the horror of the events of the book, there was a feeling of respect for everyone. Killers and victims alike. I will say that I have never read any true crime novel that handles both sides of the crime with that level of humanity, acknowledging that while some criminal acts defy logic, everyone is human. Do I think the book is worth it? Yes. I've been complaining to friends that every time I picked the book to read, it grew another 100 pages. I feel if nothing else, it offers the most interesting insight into the legal system of the time, capital punishment, belief and humanity. View all my reviews

[jasposeyblog]

This art came with an order. Superman mailer sketch by Steven A. Wilcox

[coroner-samael]

@pizzazz-party its here! it looks so fantastic on my lil’ sweatband. Also you went above and beyond with the packaging. thank you!

You even referenced my silly email dsfdfssdf

[quotessentially]

From Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night

[onenakedfarmer]

Currently Reading

Lawrence Shainberg FOUR MEN SHAKING Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher

[litsnaps]

[packagingnow]

Bubble mailers are becoming a popular option for both people and organisations in the eCommerce and shipping industries. These mailers give a cost-effective, featherlight, and secure option for shipping goods that do not need a box. It can be a little hard to choose from the numerous kinds of mailers available. To help you in making an informed decision for your packaging conditions, this article examines the numerous kinds of bubble envelopes/mailers, their special features, and uses.