Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus (Entasis Press) Amazon.com Sales Rank

6/4/10 #186,741

"Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus" reviewed today...

...in the Washington Times!

Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus (Entasis Press) Amazon.com Sales Rank

5/17/10 301,778

"Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus" is now available!

My third book, Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus, has just been published by Entasis Press in Washington DC. The website is http://www.entasispress.com/.

The book is an anthology of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and song lyrics, each of which treats Ms. Gardner in some direct (or indirect) way. It is, in concept, a sequel to my 2008 volume Sinatra: But Buddy I'm a Kind of Poem, which looks at the many different Sinatras that poets and songwriters have created over the years. And, while Sinatra, not surprisingly, also makes appearances in this volume, the focus always remains on Ava and her compelling mix of talent, strength, beauty, insecurity, and, yes, excess.

Some selections see the actress as a symbol of beauty or tenacity, others as a marker of times past and glories gone, and others as an unattainable dream or a keen reflection of the strong women in their own lives. In selection after selection, the power of Ava's work in film also rings out: Mogambo, Pandora..., On the Beach, Show Boat, Night of the Iguana, and The Barefoot Contessa, etc., a body of work that resonates still.

The authors whose works are included are quite varied: from the very well known (Margaret Atwood, Robert Graves, Allen Gurganus, Suzanne Vega, and Ava's own Mario Cabre) to those perhaps known primarily in poetry circles (Michael S. Harper, Virgil Suarez, Peg Boyers, Kirpal Singh, and Pere Gimferrer), from Ava's contemporaries to those from almost every generation since.

Reflecting Ava's own cosmopolitanism, the anthology also boasts authors not just from North America, but from all around the world: Spain, France, England, New Zealand, Greece, India, and the Philippines.

I'm pretty sure there's no other book on Ms. Gardner like this: It celebrates not just who she was, but the meanings the world has made of her -- not to mention the fascination her life, her films, and her spirit still hold for us all.

As Lee Server, the author of the internationally best-selling biography Ava Gardner: Love is Nothing of Ava, writes about the collection:

For nearly a hundred years she has inspired and inflamed her idolators, from matador to billionaire, guttersnipe paparazzo to head-in-the-clouds poet. Professor G.’s unique anthology—a rich mix of hymn, recollection, random invocation—is a divine tribute to the Goddess of sex, glamour, and passion.

My new anthology, Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus,...

...now appears on the Entasis Press website! Scroll to the bottom, although feel free to consider any of the books on the page now.

One step closer to publication on 1 May 2010....

First look at the cover of the new Ava Gardner anthology due out from Entasis Press this coming April!

Happy Birthday, Ava Lavinia Gardner!

Born this day, 1922.

Look forward to a big Ava year in 2010!

The anthology Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus, (featuring poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and song lyrics by the likes of Margaret Atwood, Robert Graves, Allan Gurganus, Pere Gimferrer, Mario Cabre, Alain Souchon, and other authors from the world round) is due to be released by Entasis Press in February.

At Central Connecticut State University, "Fridays with Ava: The Ava Gardner Film Series" will kick off on 5 February at 2 PM with The Killers (1946), starring Ava and Burt Lancaster, and introduced by CSU Professor Emeritus Barry Leeds. The other films are Show Boat (1951), Mogambo (1953), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), and On the Beach (1959).

Stay tuned here for more details -- and a sneak peek at the anthology's cover as soon as it's available!

This is why my next anthology idea, "Cotton Mather:...

...The Fabric of Our Lives," for which I've already started collecting material, makes so much sense.!

(It's going to be a hard sell as a follow up to Sinatra: But Buddy I'm a Kind of Poem and the forthcoming Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus, both from Entasis Press, but I gotta try!)

I'd try and use the comic image as the cover, of course.

I already have the one of the comics in which the Reverend appears, but it popped up today on Prof Hacker!

I know the figure means little...

...but when my 2002 book, A Storied Singer: Frank Sinatra as Literary Conceit, was mentioned in the big Sinatra and cultural studies article published last week in The Chronicle of Higher Education Review (and posted on this blog on 1/20/09), its "Amazon.com Sales Rank" jumped from close to the 3,000,000 mark to under 200,000.

Ooh, baby, somebody must've bought it!

(Too bad the author didn't mention my 2008 Entasis Press anthology Sinatra: But Buddy I'm a Kind of Poem ...HINT HINT)