California Literary Review

Martha Mason, Who Wrote Book About Her Decades in an Iron Lung, Dies at 71: Martha spent the next year in hospitals before being sent home in an iron lung. Doctors told her parents she would live another year at most. She survived, she later said, because she was endlessly curious and there was so much to learn. [NYT]

The masterpiece that killed George Orwell: In 1946 Observer editor David Astor lent George Orwell a remote Scottish farmhouse in which to write his new book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. It became one of the most significant novels of the 20th century. Here, Robert McCrum tells the compelling story of Orwell’s torturous stay on the island where the author, close to death and beset by creative demons, was engaged in a feverish race to finish the book [Guardian]

Jodi Picoult attacks ‘poorly written’ Da Vinci Code: Bestselling author of family dramas turns on Dan Brown’s religious conspiracy tale [Guardian]

Malcolm Pryce’s top 10 expatriate tales: From Graham Greene’s novels to Thomas Cook’s timetables, the novelist settles on the best rootless reads [Guardian]

Looking to Big-Screen E-Readers to Help Save the Daily Press: Now the recession-ravaged newspaper and magazine industries are hoping for their own knight in shining digital armor, in the form of portable reading devices with big screens. [NYT]

A Writer’s Violent End, and His Activist Legacy: Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a popular author who helped create a peaceful mass movement on behalf of the Ogoni people, was executed in November 1995 along with eight other environmental and human rights activists on what many contended were trumped-up murder charges. [NYT]

John Michell, Counterculture Author Who Cherished Idiosyncrasy, Dies at 76: Three years ago, Mr. Michell surprised friends and family by marrying Denise Price, the Archdruidess of the Glastonbury Order of Druids, after a courtship of less than a month. Mr. Goodwin said that two months later, “she threw him out.” In the Observer interview, Mr. Michell summed up his life: “My pursuits are a joke in that the universe is a joke. One has to reflect the universe faithfully.” [NYT]