fiction files redux discussion

wanted to share another blog with everyone... daniel goldin runs Boswell Book Company in milwaukee. he's as passionate & enthusiastic about books as anyone i've ever met & his blog is pretty entertaining. the most recent post was by a friend of mine, john eklund, sharing his review (or the beginnings of a review) of the life of samuel johnson.

http://boswellandbooks.blogspot.com/2...

I just got the new Penguin edition of The Life of Samuel Johnson and I'm slowly rereading it. I never really noticed before how jealous & malicious Boswell could be -- veiled and not so veiled insults -- he even finds a polite way to insult the memory of Johnson's beloved wife.

Literary gossip: one of my professors interviewed John Champlin Gardner Jr. during the '70s. Gardner mentioned that his agent tried to get him a few film-writing assignments. Apparently someone wanted to make a Boswell/Johnson movie and Gardner was about to accept the job, but then he began doing research on Boswell and decided he didn't want to write a script about a "creep." (Gardner also turned down an offer to write a female pirate film for Jane Fonda because it would co-star Vanessa Redgrave and he loathed her.)