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Next Scheduled Update: 23 December, 2004
This week's cover is an homage to Bollywood star, India's own Aishwarya Rai.
ROD AMIS WITH AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR PETER VERINDER:"Peter Verinder's new book Ambition came to my attention quite by accident. I was looking for something to read off-line. A review copy fell into my hands and after only a couple of chapters, I could not put it down. I was immediately taken aback by two things: the profession of the protagonist and the fact that the setting was Sydney, Australia. Verinder describes Sydney with nothing short of infatuation.
It struck me that this was good grist for The World's Magazine so I contacted his publisher. Herewith our conversation.
G21: I can't remember the last time I picked up a novel with a structural engineer as the protagonist or main character, let alone read one about the building industry. So that leads one to ask, why take a chance on such a different hero and industry with a first novel?
PETER VERINDER: I really wanted to write a story about something I knew fairly well because I believe that all good fiction is founded in fact--I would like people to read my books and always feel that the plot and the various scenes are plausible. I can't stand stories were one is expected to?make quantum jumps in credibility and feel this depreciates?readers. I also felt that those writers who had tackled stories about the building and developments industries had not done so from a standpoint of personal knowledge and therefore had never been able to penetrate its multi-faceted layers or reveal the sort of characters that work within the industry and the type of things that can happen. In short, I thought this industry and the subject of ambition, with its many variations and application to all of the secondary characters, were fertile ground upon which to base a novel. The fact that this was my first novel didn't seem to enter my thinking, it was just a story that was inside me and needed to be told.
Why a structural engineer for the main character? For my point of view,?the choice of the main character's profession was fairly natural and?was somewhat symbolic of his ambition to succeed after circumstances forced him to?start his working life?as a High School dropout. ..." READ MORE
RADIO RAHEEM ON THE HOLIDAYS:
"Looking back, it has been my lot, my inclination, you might say, to have written more holiday articles at this Web magazine than anyone else. That's not only because I have been here longer than most but also because I live close to a lot of member of my family -- other than the Louisiana branch -- than most of the other writers. So I guess it's only fitting that I do the first article of this Christmas season here at the World's Magazine.
You can find a lot of my past holiday articles on this list:
As I sat down to write this article, my wife Tanya was sitting down to watch "A Clay Aiken Christmas." Tanya can't get enough of her Yolanda Adams, whose is a guest on the show. So it was my cue to retreat to the guest room, where my computer is right now. As good a time as any to write about this season, with the holiday songs wafting in from the living room and the Allegra and K-Mart commercials providing the punctuation marks. ... " READ MORE
- Turkey Day in Cali, November, 2000
- Chittlin's and Possum Gravy November, 2000
The Season of Family November, 2001- Christmas with the Old Man December, 2003
MORE LETTERS FROM YOU:
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From Douglas McDaniel, Phoenix, AZ, USA:
SUBJECT: Letter to the Editor
Rod,
Sunday night I was reading Abbe Sieyes essay on the Third Estate, which is about how the rising neo elite of the French Revolution, the intellectuals, bleeding hearts, enlightened citizens, were ready to replace the dispossed aristocratic elite as representatives with a voice in governance. There was a problem, he said, because even to that point in the Revolution, the entire liberal class had no representation. Much like now, at least, we don't have effective representation.
So, I'm thinking, well, the Internet exists as a kind of country, and it is in many ways a powerful nation whose members direct and influence. So there, the third estate, as well as the fourth estate, is a living breathing thing through this wondrous machine. ... " READ MORE
OTHER EDITIONS
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DR BERNARD SABELLA returns to report from Palestine in G21 MIDEAST; MPUTHUMI NTABENI analyses the political tiff in South Africa in G21 AFRICA; and much more!
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