17th Century Englishman Samuel Pepys began his famous diary on the day his wife burned her hand cooking dinner. Three hundred years later "Soul Reaver," an American teenager, begins hers with a trip to the emergency room for a possible miscarriage. If you want to know what happened next, just download her latest entry. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the biography boom.
British novelist A.S. Byatt tells Steve Paulson that biographies aren't all that different from novels: both are the products of their authors. Byatt's latest is "The Biographer's Tale." Also, Edmund Morris talks about why he invented parts of "Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan."SEGMENT 2:
Amanda Foreman is the author of "Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire." She tells Anne Strainchamps that the Duchess was remarkable: beautiful, rich, addicted to gambling, drugs, alcohol and illicit love affairs, and one of the ablest political hostesses of her day. Also, Judith Thurman, biographer of Colette and Isak Dineson, comments on her craft. And James Atlas, author of "Bellow: A Biography" describes his tumultuous twenty year relationship with the American literary master Saul Bellow.SEGMENT 3:
Julian Dibbell, columnist for the on-line magazine "Feed," wrote a piece called "My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World" for the Village Voice Literary Supplement. He explains to Anne Strainchhamps what blogs are and dissects the phenomenon of on-line journal keeping.
If you're interested in some examples of on-line diaries, try these:
Cassette copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 01-04-01-B.flemingj@wpr.org
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