Publisher's Synopsis
Some samples: 1) In 1975, publishing company Alfred A. Knopf rejected "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories" by Norman Maclean, although it had previously said that it would publish the book. University of Chicago Press published the book, which met with considerable critical praise and popular success. Much later, an Alfred A Knopf editor wrote Mr. Maclean to express interest in seeing the manuscript of his next book. However, Mr. Maclean was still sore-very sore-over being rejected by Alfred A Knopf in the past, and he still dreamed of telling off the publishing company, so for his reply letter he wrote a masterpiece of invective that ended with "if the situation ever arose when Alfred A. Knopf was the only publishing house remaining in the world and I was the sole remaining author, that would mark the end of the world of books." Mr. Maclean called his letter "one of the best things I ever wrote [...] I really told those bastards off. What a pleasure! What a pleasure! Right into my hands! Probably the only dream I ever had in life that came completely true." 2) After stand-up comedian Judy Carter accepted an invitation to perform in front of a group of handicapped children, she worked hard on her act, which consisted of comic magic tricks involving such things as floating food, but when she arrived at the performance site, she discovered that the children's handicap was blindness. She ended up improvising her act, telling the children that she was completely naked and how cold it was on stage. Ms. Carter also once worked on a revolving stage. Big mistake. Each time she reached a punch line, she was facing a new part of the audience-who did not know what she was talking about. 3) Oscar Levant went to analysis for years, but remained an unhappy man. When a friend asked what good psychoanalysis had done for him, Mr. Levant replied, "I'm still unhappy, but at least I have some place to go everyday." Of course, Mr. Levant was known for his morose, grumpy personality. Once, a friend said to him, "Oscar, you sound happy." Mr. Levant replied, "I'm not myself today." By the way, early in his career, Mr. Levant played piano at a little girls' ballet school. He later told his friends, "My work was child's play." 4) The HMS Beagle is famous because Charles Darwin sailed on it and collected evidence that supported the theory of evolution. However, the Beagle was very small and very crowded-only 90 feet long and with 74 crewmembers. Mr. Darwin's quarters were large in comparison with the quarters of most of the crew, but even he barely had room to turn around. Of course, Mr. Darwin's voyage on the HMS Beagle to gather evidence that supported the theory of evolution is well known. Less well known is that British sailors referred to the Beagle and ships of its type as "coffins," because of their unfortunate tendency, during bad weather, to sink. 5) When Steve Wozniak was married to Candi Clark, they had a son they named "Jesse John Clark." They decided to use Candi's last name because "Wozniak" is difficult to spell. As a co-founder of the Apple Computer Company, Mr. Wozniak made millions, so he had money to play with. When he built a house, he designed part of it to look like a limestone cave-complete with fake cave wall paintings, fossils, and dinosaur footprints.
