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Ian Sansom savours the detail in a mammoth celebration of early 20th century avant-garde poets'1) Direct treatment of the 'thing', whether subjective or objective. 2) To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. 3) As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.' These are the tenets of imagism, a mere three sentences, as published in the March 1913 issue of the magazine Poetry. At almost a thousand pages, Professor Helen Carr's The Verse Revolutionaries, a history of the imagist movement, might be regarded as the longest footnote in history. It is, without doubt, the most comprehensive book on the subject ever written.What The Verse Revolutionaries is not, it should be said at the outset, is literary criticism or theory. Those with a hankering for close readings, rereadings and downright odd readings of actual imagist poems may still most usefully turn to the work of, say, Jerome McGann, Marjorie Perloff o

Nearly two decades after he left Odessa Permian, the coach at the center of the 'Friday Night Lights' book and film is back on ...

La Jolla Playhouse announced today the addition of the world-premiere musical Bonnie & Clyde, to its 2009-10 season, replacing The Big Time. This production features music by Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel), lyrics by Tony Award-winner Don Black (Sunset Boulevard, Song and Dance), book by Ivan Menchell (The Cemetery Club, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and direction by Jeff Calhoun (Deaf West's Big River and Pippin, Grease!). Bonnie & Clyde will run November 10 - December 20, 2009 in the Playhouse's Mandell Weiss Theatre.

Author J.D. Salinger has mounted legal efforts to keep a Swedish author's book, seemingly based on Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, from being published. Salinger, 90, is notoriously aloof and his appearance in court papers is remarkable. Hillel Italie of The Associated Press offers his insight.

Playing James, the vampire who wanted to kill Bella and Edward in Twilight, seems to have done wonders for Cam Gigandet's career. He just booked a role in the...

Stalking the Divine by Kristin Ohlson is a book worth reading for anybody who has ever had religion, lost religion, or needed it - which covers just about all of us!

Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz , the Gloucester couple who are producing the movie based on Cormac McCarthy 's novel 'The Road,' are next looking to bring a Boston book to the big screen. They've bought the film rights to 'Killer Instinct,' a bestselling corporate thriller by Boston author Joseph Finder . The Schwartzes are producing with their son, Roger ...

Marilynne Robinson's third novel, Home, a companion piece to her Puliter prize-winning novel Gilead, won the Orange this week. In it, she returns to the town of Gilead and the story of the Boughton family, tracing the return of two adult siblings, Jack and Glory, to their father's house, after different but similarly difficult experiences in the outside world. Here, she reads from the novel and talks about the relationship between the two books, why she prefers to write from a historical perspective and why, in her novels, religion takes centre-stage.

DVD recorders are a popular alternative to the VCR. With prices becoming more affordable, DVD recorders are in reach of every pocket book. Check out the current field of DVD recorders.

The Whole Five Feet What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else By Christopher R. Beha (Grove; 258 pages; $24) It's easy, in this gilded age of intellectual-stunt journalism, to feel impatient. What winking (I'm not a...