Mutiny on the Bounty

I just finished Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall's Mutiny on the Bounty. What a terrific book. I've yet to see its Best Picture-winning film adaptation (though you can expect a comparison when I do), but I'm certainly looking forward to it. Ellen saw the film long ago and said she enjoyed it. One of the things that struck me most about Mutiny on the Bounty is how gripping the prose was. Not just the story grabbed me but the words themselves did too. I could practically feel the sun beating down on me and the sea spray splashing against my face. I'm not exactly the seafaring type, but I enjoyed opening the book and feeling as though I were.

Evidently there are two sequels that deal with the lives of the other men on the ship. Whereas the latter part of Mutiny on the Bounty deals primarily with the men who stayed behind on Tahiti after the mutiny, the other two books follow the cast-off, non-mutinous crew and the mutineers who stayed with the ship. I'll have to look them up when I get a chance. For now, my next book looks like it will be Robert Bolt's 1960 play A Man for all Seasons, another offering on my Best-Picture-winning-movie-that-was-adapted-from-a-book list. Of the twenty entries on the list, A Man for all Seasons is one of only four plays. The others are Amadeus by Peter Shaffer, You Can't Take it With You by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart and Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

The director of the Harvard University Library, Robert Darnton, wrote an intriguing op-ed in yesterday's New York Times. He remarked on Google's attempt to digitize every book ever written and the recent setback this endeavor was dealt when a judge rejected a settlement between the company and two groups that were suing it over the project. Darnton goes on to propose a digital public library that he feels would be a superior, more accessible clearinghouse than what Google had proposed. With the digitization of books becoming more widespread, it's an idea that will come to fruition sooner or later, in one form or another. The only questions are when, how and how well will it be done. The article is definitely worth a read.

In other news, I heard recently that Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco has begun his tryout with Major League Soccer team Sporting Kansas City. I guess everybody passes the time differently during a lockout ...