Tag: authors

How to categorise people based on their favourite author

There’s a big list here of great stereotypes based on authors. Here are some of my favourite (stereotypes – not necessarily authors).

Richard Dawkins

People who have their significant other grab them under the table in order to shut them up whenever someone else at a dinner says something absolutely ridiculous and wrong.
Edgar Allan Poe

Men who live in their mother’s basements. Or goth seventh graders.

Michael Crichton

Doctors who went to third-tier medical schools.

John Grisham

Doctors who went to medical schools in the Dominican Republic.

Dan Brown

People who used to get lost in supermarkets when they were kids.

Virginia Woolf

Female high-school French teachers who have their master’s degree.

David Baldacci

No one. Even the police say Clancy before they’ll say Baldacci.

Stieg Larsson

Girls who are too frightened to go skydiving.

Sue Grafton

Women who have an @aol.com email address.

Douglas Adams

People who bought the first generation Amazon Kindle.

Lewis Carroll

People who move to Thailand after high school for the drug scene.

C.S. Lewis

Youth group leaders who picked their nose in the 4th grade.

Harper Lee

People who have read only one book in their life and it was To Kill A Mockingbird (and it was their assigned reading in the ninth grade).

Nick Hornby

Guys who wear skinny jeans and the girls that love them.

Ernest Hemingway

Men who own cottages.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Sommeliers.

Bret Easton Ellis

Foo Fighters’ fans.

Hunter S Thompson

That kid in your philosophy class with the stupid tattoo.

George Orwell

Conspiracy theorists (too easy).

Aldous Huxley

People who are bigger conspiracy theorists than Orwell fans.

March 6, 2010

Shirts of the Day: League of cliched comic characters

Two shirts today folks. Variations on a theme if you will. A comic book theme. Featuring every single type of comic book character known to man. An encyclopedia of comic book media…

The good guys…

and the bad guys…

Both from Threadless.

This runner up (also from Threadless) features famous authors. 20 of them. Can you name any?

April 3, 2009

Author Profile: Honoré de Balzac

I haven’t actually read anything by de Balzac. But he’s my new favourite author. The man is a legend. A prodigious talent. Not because he’s famous for writing a series of 100 novels and plays about French life post Napoleon. But because he famously drank up to 50 coffees a day. And none of the namby pamby “french press” stuff. He was on the hard stuff. The hardest stuff. Spiscious Turkish Coffee. That’s pretty much coffee sludge.

Here’s a description of his work habits from his wikipedia entry:

“Balzac’s work habits are legendary – he did not work quickly, but toiled with an incredible focus and dedication. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He would often work for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in the middle.”

And here’s some info on his coffee addiction from a Neatorama profile of famous people and their addictions:

“The famous French author would drink up to fifty cups of coffee every single day. And not stuff watered down with milk and sugar and the like – nope, Balzac liked thick, black, Turkish coffee. If it was unavailable in liquid form, or if he didn’t want to wait for it, he simply popped a handful of beans into his mouth and chewed (yuck). It may have kept him up all hours so he could write fantastic and prolific works of literature, but it didn’t do him any favors in the health department: he suffered from stomach cramps, high blood pressure and an enlarged heart. Some reports say it was the coffee that killed him – ulcers ate completely through his stomach and he died from a combination of that and caffeine poisoning.”

February 10, 2009

Ego-Surfing USA

A long long time ago I wrote about egosurfing – the act of googling oneself. Have you ever done that? I have. About once every three years  – whenever I want to blog about egosurfing. It’s depressing. My first unique appearance is for a Media Release I wrote about the Magnetic Island crocodile – it’s on the second page of the results.  Other Nathan Campbells seem so much more accomplished. There’s a triathlete (certainly not me), an artist, a second grade player at the Parramatta Eels, a scout,  and someone who has been sentenced for a crime on YouTube. I do slightly better on the pages from Australia – I’m on the first page.

The reason I write this is because US author David Baldacci, writer of fiction thrillers that are borderline “airport thrillers”, has a bad case of egosurfingitis.  I must confess that I enjoy his work. I have purchased many of his novels for many a flight. But this page is pure ego stroking/search engine optimisation. And I made it, for referring to “The Whole Truth” in my “I Spy” post. My review wasn’t even that flattering… here’s the quote they’ve used:

“I’ve also managed to plow through a David Baldacci thriller. I don’t know about you – but I like my holiday reading to be pretty mindless. So “The Whole Truth” appealed to me much more than it did to the reviewer quoted on the Amazon page”

The worst bit is that the process doesn’t appear to be automated – it’s posted by “staff writers”. Now the reason I know this isn’t down to egosurfing – WordPress automatically tracks linkbacks to the blog from around the web. I can only hope that David Baldacci will link to me again if I mention his book “The Whole Truth” a couple more times. And perhaps put a link in to the Amazon page for The Whole Truth – which I did actually enjoy.  That’s the whole truth. I probably enjoyed the Robert Ludlum (of Bourne series fame) The Icarus Agenda more. It was superior as far as political conspiracy theory thrillers go. The Whole Truth seemed like a Wag the Dog derivative only instigated from the corporate rather than political sector.

January 27, 2009