Britain's first homegrown existentialist star, he failed to follow up the huge success of his 1956 book, The OutsiderFor a few dazzling months, Colin Wilson, who has died aged 82, was taken at his own valuation in his diary as "the major literary genius of our century", a writer destined to be "Plato's ideal sage and king". The phenomenal reviews and sales of his first book, The Outsider (1956), led him to be seen as a potential saviour of the human spirit, a thinker who might find a way through the spiritual nullity of the postwar years.The book remains extraordinary, more for its reach than its grasp. It was an attempt to map a single, negotiable path of mysticism from the span of recent western art and philosophy. Wilson looked for the path through case studies of the agonies and ecstasies of thinkers, artists and men of action including Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Vaslav Nijinsky, Vincent van Gogh, Hermann Hesse and Lawrence of Arabia. He condensed them into a single type, "the Outsider", a questing spirit straddled between devastating experiences of nothingness and moments of the highest insight."Our life in modern society is a repetition of Van Gogh's problem," Wilson said, "the day-to-day struggle for intensity that disappears overnight, interrupted by human triviality and endless pettiness." The book was excitingly written, with a sense of revelation. The failing, which took longer to emerge, was that it oversimplified... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
Jerry Gross, co-founder of the Independent Editors Group, died in Santa Monica, Calif. on July 6. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helen Ditlow, who with her husband Anthony launched Listening Library in 1955, died June 26 at age 92. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Walter Dean Myers, the award-winning children’s author best known for his many novels that portray the often difficult life experiences of young African-Americans, died on July 1 following a brief illness. He was 76. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Longtime Penguin publicity director Maureen Donnelly passed away on June 30, after a brief battle with breast cancer. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Paul Edward Kozlowski, previously associate publisher of Other Press, passed away at the Hoboken University Medical Center on June 25. He was 60. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One of three editors in the 1971 Oz obscenity trial who went on to become a hugely successful magazine and book publisherFelix Dennis cackling laugh, roistering humour, ribald in appetite, loyal and immensely generous has died aged 67 from cancer. One of the richest men in Britain, he made his... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Alan Mirken, who arranged the sale of the Crown Publishing Group to Random House in 1988 when he served as president of the company, died June 12 from heart problems. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helene Green, v-p, business information and data operations at Simon & Schuster, died June 10 after a long illness. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Frances Foster, editor of numerous award-winning authors and illustrators, died on Sunday, June 8. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-06-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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My friend and colleague Joan Bunting, who has died aged 88, was in charge of overseas sales at Cambridge University Press (CUP) for many years. A woman of pioneering spirit and great business acumen, she was instrumental in opening up the Japanese market and in setting up CUP's Australian... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-06-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Oscar Dystel, an early pioneer of mass market paperbacks and one-time CEO of Bantam Books, passed away at the age of 101. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-05-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barb Burg, who started her career in publicity in 1986 at Bantam Books and rose to become senior v-p and director of publicity and public relations for Bantam Doubleday Dell, died April 29. She was 50. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Marvel has released the Ms. Marvel comic book #3, Side Entrance. PW spoke with its author, G. Willow Wilson, about her unique superhero. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the forty years since she founded the Wallace Literary Agency, she has represented authors like William F. Buckley, Joan Didion, and Don DeLillo. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Erica Kochman Warshal, director of national accounts at Abrams, passed away suddenly on March 31. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Teacher, who cofounded Running Press in 1972, died at his home in Philadelphia on March 25. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Kraig is perhaps best known as the author of "Modern Magick," published in 1988. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The manager of Vroman’s Hastings Ranch store since 2002 passed away March 14 after a long battle with cancer. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-03-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Controversial writer and journalist known for Fatal Vision and The Selling of the PresidentIs a journalist "a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse?" That was the question asked by Janet Malcolm in her... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tobago-born writer, activist and founder of the London-based publishing venture Karia PressBuzz Johnson, who has died aged 62 from an arterial haemorrhage, was the founder of Karia Press, one of the small but dedicated band of African-Caribbean publishing initiatives in the UK that have had an... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2014-03-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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