Nobel Prize Winning Playwright Harold Pinter Dead

An actor, essayist, screenwriter, poet and director as well as a dramatist, Harold Pinter died last Wednesday of cancer. In more than 30 plays,includingThe Birthday Party,The Caretaker,The Homecoming and Betrayal, Pinter captured the anxiety and ambiguity of life. The adjective Pinteresque has become part of the cultural vocabulary as a byword for strong and unspecified menace. Pinter was outspoken in his views on repression and censorship, at home and abroad. He used his Nobel Prize acceptance speech to critize American foreign policy, stating that the United States had not only lied to justify waging war against Iraq, but that it had also “supported and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship” in the last 50 years. He once said “The play is a comedy because the whole state of affairs is absurd and inglorious. It is, however, as you know, a very serious piece of work.”

New Movies From Books

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, opens December 25. Brad Pitt is the voice of Benjamin Button, a man who ages in reverse. Marley & Me, based on the best selling book by John Grogan, opens December 25. A couple (Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson) learn life lessons from a lovable yet rambunctious dog. The Spirit, based on the comic book series by Will Eisner, opens December 25. Frank Miller adapted and directed this tale of a cop (Gabriel Macht) who returns from the dead to fight crime. Revolutionary Road, based on the novel by Richard Yates, opens December 26. A couple (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) struggle to overcome their personal problems while raising children in a 1950s Connecticut suburb.

Poet Elizabeth Alexander to Read at Inauguration

President-elect Obama has asked Elizabeth Alexander to compose and read a poem at his inauguration next month. As the Washington Post observed, "It is the first time that 'poetry's old-fashioned praise,' as Robert Frost called it, will be featured at the ceremony since Bill Clinton's second swearing in back in 1997." Alexander, a professor at Yale University, has written several books, including four poetry collections. Her most recent, American Sublime , was a finalist for the 2005Pulitzer prize. "I'm just so honored to have been asked to present and to compose a poem for this momentous occasion," Alexander told the Guardian. "What we have seen is a man who understands that words bring power, who understands the power of language, the integrity of language, that it's not just idle. To be asked to turn my own words to this occasion and for this person is all but overwhelming."

Best Business Books 208

Business Week has named its best business books of 2008:
The Trillion Dollar Meltdown by Charles R. Morris;
The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder;
The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs by Charles D. Ellis;
Hell's Cartel: I.G. Farben and the Making of Hitler's War Machine by Diarmuid Jeffreys;
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely.

New York Times 10 Best Books of 2008

The editors of the New York Times Book Review have selected the following titles:
Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories by Steven Millhauser
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
2666 by Roberto Bolano
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Dark Side by Jane Meyer
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
Nothing to be Frightened of by Julian Barnes
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
The World is What It is: Authorized Biography of V.S.Naipaul by Patrick French