Category: Books (1-10 of 26)

Feb 4 2013 09:00 AM ET

'American Sniper' author Chris Kyle shot and killed

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Image Credit: Paul Moseley/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Landov

The former top Navy SEAL sniper who authorities say was killed at a Texas shooting range was devoted to maintaining camaraderie and helping his fellow veterans find their way after leaving active duty.

Chris Kyle, author of the best-selling book American Sniper, and his friend Chad Littlefield apparently were doing just that Saturday when, officials say, they were shot and killed by former Marine Eddie Ray Routh.

Kyle, 38, had left the Navy in 2009 after four tours of duty in Iraq, where he earned a reputation as one of the military’s most lethal snipers. But he quickly found a way to maintain contact with his fellow veterans and pass on what had helped him work through his own struggles. By late 2011, he filed the paperwork to establish the nonprofit FITCO Cares, which received its nonprofit status the following spring, said FITCO director Travis Cox.

“Chris struggled with some things,” Cox said. “He’d been through a lot and he handled it with grace, but yeah he did struggle with some things. And he found a healthy outlet and was proactive in his approach to deal with those issues and wanted to help spread his healing, what worked for him, to others. And that’s what he died doing.” READ FULL STORY »

Oct 1 2012 10:32 PM ET

Musician Chris Thile, author Junot Diaz among MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant' recipients

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Mandolin player and composer Chris Thile learned the hard way that when you get a call from the 312 area code this time of year, you should probably answer the phone.

Thile is among 23 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Foundation “genius grants,” which are given in a secrecy-shrouded process. Winners have no idea they’ve been nominated for the $500,000 awards until they get the call, and nominators must remain anonymous.
READ FULL STORY »

Aug 13 2012 03:53 PM ET

Former 'Cosmopolitan' editor-in-chief Helen Gurley Brown has died at 90

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Image Credit: Everett Collection

Trailblazing magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown has passed away after a brief hospitalization, according to a Hearst Corporation press release. She was 90.

“Widely heralded as a legend, Gurley Brown’s impact on popular culture and society reached around the globe, first with her 1962 bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl, and then for the more than three decades she put her personal stamp on Cosmopolitan in a way rarely replicated by editors,” the release reads in part. “Under her reign, Cosmopolitan became the bible of ‘single girls’ worldwide and remains the magazine of ‘fun, fearless, females’ to this day.”

Gurley Brown was born in Green Forest, Ark. on February 18, 1922. After stints at Texas State College for Women and Woodbury Business College, the future publishing superstar took on a series of secretarial jobs. She eventually transitioned into writing advertising copy, then cemented herself as a public figure in 1962 with the publication of Sex and the Single Girl. Gurley Brown went on to become Cosmopolitan‘s editor-in-chief in 1965, transforming the conservative periodical into a must-read magazine for young, single women. She left her position in 1997, moving on to become editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan‘s international editions (which now number 64).

Gurley Brown will be remembered for her impact on the publishing industry, her contributions to the culture at large, and sly quips like this famous line: “Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.”

Jul 16 2012 01:15 PM ET

'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' author dies

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Stephen R. Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as well as three other books that have all sold more than a million copies, has died. He was 79. In a statement sent to employees of a Utah consulting firm Covey co-founded, his family said the writer and motivational speaker died at a hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho, early Monday due to complications from a bicycle accident in April. “In his final hours, he was surrounded by his loving wife and each one of his children and their spouses, just as he always wanted,” the family said.

Covey was hospitalized after being knocked unconscious in the bicycle accident on a steep road in the foothills of Provo, Utah, about 45 miles south of Salt Lake City. At the time, his publicist, Debra Lund, said doctors had not found any signs of long-term damage to his head. “He just lost control on his bike and crashed,” Lund said. “He was wearing a helmet, which is good news.”

Covey is the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and co-founder of Utah-based professional services company FranklinCovey. Catherine Sagers, Covey’s daughter, told The Salt Lake Tribune in April that her father had suffered some bleeding on his brain after the bicycle accident. A telephone message left for Sagers on Monday wasn’t returned.

May 29 2012 08:44 PM ET

Bob Dylan, Toni Morrison among Medal of Freedom recipients

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Sketching impressive contributions to society in intensely personal terms, President Barack Obama presented the Medal of Freedom to more than a dozen political and cultural greats Tuesday, including rocker Bob Dylan, astronaut John Glenn and novelist Toni Morrison.

In awarding the nation’s highest civilian honor to 13 recipients, living and dead, the president took note of the overflow crowd in the East Room and said it was “a testament to how cool this group is. Everybody wanted to check ‘em out.”

Obama then spoke of his personal connection to a number of this year’s recipients, calling them “my heroes individually.”

“I know how they impacted my life,” the president said. He recalled reading Morrison’s Song of Solomon in his youth and “not just trying to figure out how to write, but also how to be and how to think.”

In college days, Obama said, he listened to Dylan and recalled “my world opening up, because he captured something about this country that was so vital.” Dylan’s appearance drew the biggest whoops from the crowd, and he dressed for the event — sunglasses, bow tie and black suit embellished with shiny buckles and buttons.  READ FULL STORY »

May 16 2012 12:24 PM ET

Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes dead

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Image Credit: Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

Author Carlos Fuentes, who played a dominant role in Latin America’s novel-writing boom by delving into the failed ideals of the Mexican revolution, died Tuesday in a Mexico City hospital. He was 83.

Fuentes died at the Angeles del Pedregal hospital where he was taken after his personal doctor, Arturo Ballesteros, found him in shock in his Mexico City home. Ballesteros told reporters outside the hospital that the writer had a sudden internal hemorrhage that caused him to lose consciousness.

The loss was mourned worldwide via Twitter and across Mexican airwaves by everyone from fellow Mexican authors Elena Poniatowska and Jorge Volpi to reggaeton artist Rene Perez of the group Calle 13. “I deeply lament the death of our beloved and admired Carlos Fuentes, a universal Mexican writer,” said President Felipe Calderon on his Twitter account. READ FULL STORY »

Apr 4 2012 11:11 AM ET

Dartmouth names medical school after Dr. Seuss

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Dartmouth College has named its medical school after a famous alum: Theodor “Ted” Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Dartmouth said Wednesday that Geisel and his wife, Audrey, have been the most significant philanthropists in its history. The school is being named the Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine.

President Jim Yong Kim said Geisel, a 1925 graduate, lived out the Dartmouth ethos of thinking differently and creatively to illuminate the world’s challenges, and the opportunities for understanding and surmounting them. Audrey Geisel, who has a background as a nurse, said her husband would be proud to have his name forever connected to the school.

Geisel, who died in 1991, penned The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, among many other children’s classics.

Mar 21 2012 03:25 PM ET

Reese Witherspoon expecting third baby

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Reese Witherspoon and husband Jim Toth are expecting their first child together after nearly a year of marriage, reports People. “Jim and Reese are looking forward to having a bigger family at this point in life,” a friend of the Oscar winner told the mag. “They can take the time to enjoy the next stage and make sure their transition is easy and joyful.”

This will be Witherspoon’s third child. She has two children — Ava, 12, and Deacon, 8 — with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe.

Read more:
Reese Witherspoon marries Jim Toth
Ryan Murphy in talks for ‘One Hit Wonders’ with Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon, and Andy Samberg
‘This Means War’ pushed back from Valentine’s Day to Feb. 17

Mar 11 2012 11:43 AM ET

Comics icon Jean 'Moebius' Giraud dies at age 73

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Image Credit: BORIS HORVAT/AFP/Getty

This weekend, the comics world lost one of its iconic figures — and the science-fiction movie world one of its greatest influences — with the passing of Jean Giraud. Better known by his pen name of “Moebius,” Giraud was France’s best-known comics artist, and helped inspire the design of many sci-fi movies including Ridley Scott’s films Alien and Blade Runner, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, and Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element. “Moebius is to comic books what Miles Davis is to jazz: the master,” Besson once said. According to the Los Angeles Times, Giraud died on Friday night or Saturday morning after a battle with cancer. He was 73.

Giraud was born in France in May 1938 and, in his 20s, made his reputation with the Old West saga Les Aventures de Blueberry, penned by Jean-Michel Charlier. In 1974, the artist launched the adult sci-fi and fantasy comics anthology Métal Hurlant, which was published here as Heavy Metal. Moebius’ detailed, intricate artwork would have a massive, and lasting, influence on the science-fiction genre from Alien, for which he supplied concept designs, to the novels of cyberpunk novelist William Gibson. “I was having lunch with Ridley (Scott),”  cyberpunk novelist William Gibson once wrote. “And when the conversation turned to inspiration, we were both very clear about our debt to the Métal Hurlant school of the ’70s — Moebius and others.”

For more on Jean Giraud’s life and influence, check out the documentary, Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures.

Dec 18 2011 02:31 PM ET

Vaclav Havel, playwright and anti-communist revolutionary, has died at 75

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Vaclav Havel wove theater into revolution, leading the charge to peacefully bring down communism in a regime he ridiculed as “Absurdistan” and proving the power of the people to overcome totalitarian rule. Shy and bookish, with a wispy mustache and unkempt hair, the dissident playwright was an unlikely hero of Czechoslovakia’s 1989 “Velvet Revolution” after four decades of suffocating repression — and of the epic struggle that ended the wider Cold War. He was his country’s first democratically elected president, leading it through the early challenges of democracy and its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, though his image suffered as his people discovered the difficulties of transforming their society.

A former chain-smoker who had a history of chronic respiratory problems dating back to his years in communist jails, Havel died Sunday morning at his weekend home in the northern Czech Republic, his assistant Sabina Tancevova said. His wife Dagmar and a nun who had been caring for him the last few months of his life were by his side, she said. He was 75.  READ FULL STORY »

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