Charlie Rose

Gelles  12/05/2011 04:25 AM Report

Why add post-send edit (cheapest viewer comment is enough):

There are characters we know from real life and others we have read about in NON-fiction and in novels.

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...> (par 7 below)

Gelles  12/05/2011 04:13 AM Report

Novels "are the purest form of entertainment." -- Jim Grant pen name Lee Child, born 1954 age 57, net worth high, intelligence very high, clue to character: at Granada TV, UK, was two years a trade union shop steward.

If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

If your me, everything looks like a deficit in demand in a world where supply is often a curse.

After watching this interview I wanted to read all his books. He is as attractive an author, in his manner of talking, as I can imagine.

John Kenneth Galbraith was as tall or taller than Jim Grant. And he never used a pen name -- although his friends knew him as Ken and readers first thought his name was John.

More than 99% of us are short compared to Jim and Ken -- even shorter compared to centers in the NBA. What makes it tolerable is the fact that 71 inches is enough -- where so many women shorter than that are splendid.

There are characters we know from real life and others we have read about in fiction and in novels. All have value as entertainment and value as friends, strangers, and enemies, etc. in real life experiences. Where would you rather be? In the grip of an entertainment or the clutches of friends and enemies? What is the difference between a mystery story and a mystery of life? Other than Jeanette MacDonald's voice?

Two mysteries stand out for me at the moment: one surrounds unemployment and poverty -- if they're not necessary, (and obviously they are not) why do they persist; and the other surrounds nuclear weapons in the arsenals of democracy and the arsenals of the despicable's.

Nuclear weapons in N. Korea and Pakistan are like rotten teeth in need of extraction. But who is the dentist called on to do the work? Let Lee Child tackle that mystery. Start, maybe, with Iran. The teeth are rotting -- but not rotten enough to poison all life in the neighborhood.

As you can see, I'm no mystery writer -- not even a mystery reader. Just another mystery, along with all the rest. Our existence is a mystery. Its solution is guaranteed.

Gelles  12/05/2011 03:15 AM Report

[FROM: Wikipedia entry on the author]

"CAREER

"Grant joined Granada Television, part of the UK's ITV Network, in Manchester as presentation director. There he was involved with shows including Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown (TV series), Prime Suspect, and Cracker. Grant was involved in the transmission of more than 40,000 hours of programming for Granada, writing thousands of commercials, news stories, and trailers. He stayed with Granada 1977-1995 and ended his career there with two years as a trade union shop steward.

"After being let go from his job because of corporate restructuring, he decided he wanted to start writing novels, stating they are "the purest form of entertainment."[10] In 1997, his first novel, Killing Floor, was published and he moved to the US in the summer of 1998.

"He has said that he chose the name Reacher for the central character in his novels because he is himself tall and, in a supermarket (Asda in Kendal, Cumbria, when he was living in Kirkby Lonsdale), his wife Jane told him: "Hey, if this writing thing doesn't pan out, you could always be a reacher in a supermarket."... "I thought, Reacher — good name." Some books in the Reacher series are written in first person, while others are written in the third person.

"In 2007, Grant collaborated with 14 other writers to create the 17-part serial thriller "The Chopin Manuscript" narrated by Alfred Molina that was broadcast weekly on Audible.com from 25 September 2007 to 13 November 2007.

"On 30 June 2008, it was announced that Lee Child would be taking up a Visiting Professorship at the University of Sheffield in the UK from November 2008. In 2009, Child funded 52 Jack Reacher scholarships for students at the university.

"Child was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America in 2009."

[Charlie hinted at all of these reasons to read Lee Childs, an author whom I'd never heard of. Obviously, I'm not much of a reader today--like the much loved Herman Cain, why read if you can lead? Lousy joke. Comment follows.]

Gelles  12/05/2011 02:49 AM Report

[FROM: Amazon.com blurb about the author]

"LEE CHILD is the author of sixteen Jack Reacher thrillers, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Worth Dying For, 61 Hours, Gone Tomorrow, Nothing to Lose, and Bad Luck and Trouble. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry awards for Best First Mystery, and The Enemy won both the Barry and the Nero awards for Best Novel. Foreign rights in the Jack Reacher series have sold in more than fifty territories. All titles have been optioned for major motion pictures. Child, a native of England and a former television director, lives in New York City."

[Similar brief from Wikipedia comes next]

www.outputbasedmoney.info <== on crises leading to election 2012--alternate thriller fiction that gets harder to believe by the day

tabs  12/02/2011 06:15 PM Report

This was a very good interview as it had the up close and personal pathos of a mans life.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/02/2011 02:34 PM Report

Charlie, left me hanging buddy . . . why did he go to law school, why does he not use his real name and most important of all, how is he going to stretch Tom Cruise to 6'5" to play his main character?

SZRetired  12/02/2011 01:50 PM Report

Already read it and loved it!! Another 2 thumbs up for Lee Child!

REMant  12/02/2011 11:04 AM Report

Book is available on Usenet in several ebook versions and mp3, too, so must be popular. Also, BTW, all the previous 15. Not my type tho, but I think I'm burned out on those things anyway. I've never encountered one without hugely visible flaws, at which point I stop reading, and I'm convinced I could never suspend my sensibility enough to write one myself.