Quote:
Originally Posted by Elsi
I'm curious. Did you get out to any of the events at the Cheltenham Literary Festival this week?
|
Yes indeed. Perhaps the highlight was seeing Tony Curtis today (although Roger Moore was very good too, last week). Some of the locals could not believe that such a famous Hollywood star as Tony Curtis would come to a relatively small town like Cheltenham. My wife overheard someone insisting that he would only be appearing by satellite link. I did wonder myself when we were all seated in the hall beforehand, waiting for something to happen. There were two empty seats on the stage, until a stagehand came on and removed one. So, I thought, does this mean just one chair for the interviewer, and Mr Curtis would only appear on the big screen above the stage?
Then the interviewer walked on and introduced Mr Curtis, who duly appeared - in a wheelchair. But he did stand to take some bows, and a much deserved standing ovation. He had the warmest reception of all the talkers I have seen. He talked for about 45 minutes, mainly about his early life and meeting Marilyn Monroe. The first day they met he persuaded Marilyn to accept a lift in his Buick convertible. She was wearing a skirt, and despite it being a sunny day Tony put on the heating fans, and imagined the warm air blowing up her skirt...
Afterwards Mr Curtis signed copies of his auto-biography, and I felt very sorry for him as the queue stretched well outside the book tent. I would not want to sign so many books, and he is almost twice my age (he's 83).
I guess am I a bit star struck now. We are very fortunate to have the literature festival here, and the science festival in the summer, as we get a lot of very interesting speakers. Next year, my wife and I have decided to take the week off work so we can attend more of the talks at the literature festival.
I bought my PRS-505 a couple of weeks ago, and I have decided that I will not buy any more paper books (mainly to save house space). So I felt a bit of a traitor this week at the festival, where all the speakers were trying to sell their latest works, and were signing them, and we were surrounded by paper books. In the coming age of ebooks, what will replace book signing? There are probably not many current authors who would understand what an ebook is, or how to personalize it.