I remember this thread – Cool author photos – on I Love Books – it’s terrific:
That thread getting a lot of traffic right now – so some of the images aren’t showing up – but keep trying, and keep scrolling. Some truly incredible ones. And any thread that includes Louise Fitzhugh, author of my favorite book, along with people like Edward Gibbon, Mark Twain, and Balzac is okay by me.
Also, follow the links that people leave in the thread. You too can see Proust on his death bed! But beautiful photos of Mark Twain – and an EXTRAORDINARY photo of Buster Keaton and Samuel Beckett which is just making me DROOL.
And also – check out this “Pictures of Writers” thread. Again, it is taking a while for the photos to load – but some real gems there. Worth the wait if you’re into this kind of stuff.
via Book Slut
Wow…that’s amazing and cool.
I wonder what was going on with Balzac in the picture on the second thread…he’s got his shirt all open! Was he trying to look heroic, was that the fashion?
They also have one on there purporting to be Elron (you know who I mean). I don’t know if it’s really the photo of him but GAWD does the guy look smarmy. Kind of like Jon Lovitz in those Subway ads that scare me half to death when they come on the television.
It’s fascinating to see: the men who project the “manly” steretype, the ones who are unabashedly foppish, the ones who don’t photograph well and are blinking at the camera behind their thick glasses. (I sympathise with them the most; I’m unphotogenic and usually come off looking like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck)…
it would make a fascinating book, just a big collection of author photos, both posed and casual.
hahaha Yes, Elron the famous “author”! Who typed at the miraculous rate of 94 wpm!!
I know about the Balzac – funny, right?
it seems that some authors truly wanted to create a cult of their own personality (uhm – Truman?? I love those photos – so ridiculous) – and others just want to be seen as “author”.
I was unaware that Strindberg was kinda handsome – albeit in a kind of delicate way. His plays do not suggest that a handsome man wrote them … I don’t know why, but they just don’t!!
GREAT picture of Dorothy Parker in that second thread, too – I didn’t even know who she was, she looks so glowing and young.
Also – what is Elron wearing – a cravat of some kind?? Moron.
I had to laugh at David B. Feinberg’s “ding ding dong” pose.
Yeah, I will admit to having done a teeny, tiny “rawr!” when I saw the Strindberg photo.
And I love, love that photo of Truman Capote on the settee (?) It’s so posed, so artificial – and yet so perfect.