On the road again...

New film 'The Road' was released yesterday in the UK. Based on the highly successful Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, the film is set around a post-apocalyptic wasteland, filmed in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Oregon. Boasting an impressive cast, including Viggo Mortensen, of Lord of the Rings fame, Robert Duvall and Charlize Theron, the film has already won a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, and has been nominated for a further seven. Click here to watch the trailer

Cormac shuns computers...

Author Cormac McCarthy is selling the typewriter which he used to write all his books. Author of such works as 'The Road', and recent cinematic success 'No Country for Old Men', McCarthy estimates that the typewriter has seen 'about five million words over a period of 50 years'. He bought the typewriter in 1963 from a pawn shop for the price of $50 and has not serviced it since; part of his reason for auctioning it being its 'serious signs of wear'. The typewriter will be auctioned at Christie's in New York on Friday and is expected to fetch up to $20,000 (£13,200); the money from the sale will go towards the Santa Fe institute, a scientific reasearch centre. Yet McCarthy refues to transfer to computers, and has found a replacement typewriter of the same make for $11.

McCarthy rules the naughties...

The Times, has published a list of the '100 Greatest Books of the Decade'. Including works from all genres, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage and Seamus Heaney are the ambassadors for poetry, with 'Rapture', 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' and 'District and Circle' respectively. Non- fiction works also feature; Obama's autobiography leads the list at number 2, and Dawkins, Bryson and grammatical work 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' occupy a place in the top 100. Naturally the list is dominated by fiction novels, with household names, such as Ian McEwan and J.K. Rowling, as well as Man Booker Prize winners Yann Martel and Aravind Adiga. Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road', was voted as the greatest book of the decade. Running in conjunction, was the '5 Worst Books of the Decade'; a list including 'Being Jordan' by Katie Price. Author Dan Brown has the unusual accolade of being cited on both lists; perhaps testament to the success of his novels in both polarising opinion and raising publicity.