Last June, I was invited to speak at the Arnold Bennett Society Conference in Stoke-on-Trent, England. I gave a 20 min. presentation on the state of Arnold Bennett's work in America and what can be done to improve its current condition. I also spoke about public domain works that are published digitally and the business side of ebooks for major publishers like Barnes and Noble.
Coming from a film background, these have been a lot of fun to make. With Leslie Nielson playing the role of Arnold Bennett, I've put together a short 1m30sec trailer for the upcoming book The Truth About An Author.
Originally published anonymously in the columns of The 'Academy', and reprinted years afterwards under the author's name, Bennett gives an unabashed account of his early struggles and successes on his way to becoming an English literary giant. Bennett's autobiography sheds light on what it meant to be an English writer around the turn the century. This version of Bennet's classic autobiography has been completely remastered and edited for complete clarity on the author's original vision.
Enjoy.
I have an awful knock-knock joke to illustrate my latest project.
-Knock, knock.
-"Who's there?"
-"Arnold Bennett."
-"Arnold Bennett Who?"
-"Exactly."
A common thread, both in my life and my website, is that I enjoy telling other people about stuff that I really like. I don't think I'm alone in this characteristic, I think most people tell their friends about the movies that they like, the bands that they just got into and such.
But I'm eccentric and so when I say I'm into this band or reading this book by this guy, I usually get a response of "What?" or "Who?", which is great, because I love sharing new stuff with people, just as much as I enjoy people turning me onto things that I had never heard of before.
So back to the joke, "Arnold Bennett who?", "Exactly."
I came across Bennett's work while digging through public domain for exercises for my first book. I came across a series of books he'd written on subject of "how to write", and for me "How to Write" books are something of an addiction, a compulsion, a must have collector's item, etc. I've read several "How to Write" books, many bad, some good, some exceptional, some life-changing.
Arnold Bennett's book The Truth About An Author, is Bennett's autobiography at a time in his life just prior to him achieving the great literary legend that we've come to labe him as. The work is something akin to reading the autobiography of The Beatles just prior to the recording of Sgt. Pepper, or Springsteen's Born to Run. At this point in Arnold Bennett's life, he had acheived a significant amount of success, so much so that he thought that he might have reached the top. Little did he know the best things he'd write and be known for, were just around the corner.
Seeing that the book had been out of print for some time, I took it upon myself to update it properly giving it a nice cover and updating the spelling into modern American English. The book is in its final stages of production and I am very excited about making it available ot everyone to enjoy again or for the first time.
Hi Everybody!
A little update on what's been going on behind the scenes at KrisMadden.com.
Heart of Darkness is nearly finished being reformatted for use in practice reading. The text will look similar to the text found in the "Dishabituation" chapter in Learn To Speed Read.
I'm also working on editing and re-releasing Arnold Bennett's book Truth About An Author. Arnold Bennett was good friends with H. G. Wells and is considered to be one of the greatest English novelists of the late 19th-early 20th century.
The book is his autobiography on his literary career and what it meant to be a writer in around the turn of the century. Before wikipedia, or computers, in a time when the typewriter was the latest greatest office machine, Bennett gives readers a look into how he came to be a writer and what he hoped to achieve with his work.
It's been out of print for quite some time, and the editions that are available still have the old English spellings like "humour" and "colour" and "practise". So I've gone through the entire text and updated the spelling and done a little reformatting for clarity, but no edits have been made to change the author's work, only to further enhance it.
The poster is a pretty blatant hint about what the new speed reading trailer will spoof off of. I'm actually more of a Return of The Street Fighter fan, than I am of the first film, either way Sonny Chiba is just plain cool. Got to get back to work, take care everyone.
- Kris Madden