The Financial Lives of the Poets is the fifth novel by the American writer Jess Walter. It is a comedic novel first published in 2009. The novel explores the global financial crisis, through the eyes of a business reporter turned poet. [1]
Reception of the novel was generally positive. The New York Times was largely positive, calling it successful at "captur[ing] the fiscal panic and frustration" and full of "blistering wisecracks". [1] The Los Angeles Times called it "darkly funny, surprisingly tender [and] verse sprinkled", though the review highlighted the characters in the novel as flawed and "bumbling", bringing their woes upon themselves. [2]
The Washington Post was similarly positive, though focusing on how the humor and comedy critique the American economic system, as "a scathing indictment of our country's character and the "ruined systems" we labor under." [3] The Daily Telegraph review was more mixed, describing it as a "zeitgeist novel", humorously reflecting on the economic depression, yet at the same time flawed. "For every moment of acute description [...] there are paragraphs of slumping, banal analysis." [4]
Kirsten Caroline Dunst is an American actress. She made her acting debut in the short Oedipus Wrecks directed by Woody Allen in the anthology film New York Stories (1989). She then gained recognition for her role as child vampiress Claudia in the horror film Interview with the Vampire (1994), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also had roles in her youth in Little Women (1994) and the fantasy films Jumanji (1995) and Small Soldiers (1998).
Michelle Marie Pfeiffer is an American actress and producer. A prolific performer whose screen work spans over four decades, she became one of Hollywood's most bankable stars and popular sex symbols during the 1980s and 1990s. She has received numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2007, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is a Welsh actress. Known for her versatility, she is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Tony Award. In 2010, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her film and humanitarian work.
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor and film director. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award. Hawke has directed three feature films, three off-Broadway plays, and a documentary. He has also written three novels and one graphic novel. He made his film debut with the 1985 science fiction feature Explorers, before making a breakthrough appearance in the 1989 drama Dead Poets Society. He appeared in various films before taking a role in the 1994 Generation X drama Reality Bites, for which he received critical praise. Hawke starred alongside Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013), co-writing the latter two with Delpy and Linklater. More recently, he has starred in Scott Derrickson's horror films Sinister (2012) and The Black Phone (2021).
David Lawrence Schwimmer is an American actor, director and producer. He gained worldwide recognition for portraying Ross Geller in the sitcom Friends, for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1995. While still acting in Friends, his first leading film role was in The Pallbearer (1996), followed by roles in Kissing a Fool, Six Days, Seven Nights, Apt Pupil, and Picking Up the Pieces (2000). He was then cast in the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) as Herbert Sobel.
Hugh John Mungo Grant is an English actor. He established himself early in his career as both a charming, and vulnerable romantic lead and has since transitioned into a dramatic character actor. Among his numerous accolades, he has received a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, Volpi Cup, and an Honorary César. As of 2018, his films had grossed a total of nearly US$3 billion worldwide. In 2022 Time Out magazine listed Grant as one of Britain's Greatest Actors of all time.
Toni Collette Galafassi is an Australian actress, producer, singer, and songwriter. Known for her work in television and independent films, she has received various accolades throughout her career, including a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and two British Academy Film Awards. She has also won five AACTA Awards, from eight nominations.
Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer is a British-American actress. She began acting in stage productions and has since appeared in several film and television roles. In 2003, she won an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in Lovely and Amazing. She is also known for playing Mackenzie McHale in the HBO series The Newsroom, and as the voice actress of Sophie in the English-language version of Howl's Moving Castle (2004). She also starred in Scream 3 (2000), Match Point (2005), The Pink Panther (2006) and its 2009 sequel, Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Chaos Theory (2008), Harry Brown (2009), Shutter Island (2010), Cars 2 (2011), Hugo (2011), Mary Poppins Returns (2018), and Relic (2020). She created and wrote the series Doll & Em (2014-15) and wrote and directed the miniseries The Pursuit of Love (2021) based on the 1945 novel of the same name.
Emily Olivia Leah Blunt is a British actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for three British Academy Film Awards. Forbes ranked her as one of the highest-paid actresses in the world in 2020.
James Edward Franco is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in 127 Hours (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007), Milk (2008), Eat, Pray, Love (2010), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Spring Breakers (2012), and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). He is known for his collaborations with fellow actor Seth Rogen, having appeared in eight films and one television series with him, examples being Pineapple Express (2008), This Is the End (2013), Sausage Party (2016), and TheDisasterArtist (2017), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.
Rachel Cusk is a British novelist and writer.
Little Murders is a 1971 American black comedy film directed by Alan Arkin, in his feature film directorial debut, and starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd. Based on the stage play of the same name by Jules Feiffer, it is the story of a woman, Patsy (Rodd), who brings home her boyfriend, Alfred (Gould), to meet her severely dysfunctional family amidst a series of random shootings, garbage strikes and electrical outages ravaging their New York City neighborhood.
Jess Walter is an American author of seven novels, two collections of short stories, and a non-fiction book. He is the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2006.
Jeremy Duns is a British author of spy fiction and the history of espionage. Born in Manchester, he now resides in Åland.
American Rust is a novel by American writer Philipp Meyer, published in 2009. It is set in the 2000s, in the fictional town of Buell in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, which is in a rural region referred to as "the Valley" of dilapidated steel towns. The novel focuses on the decline of the American middle class and well-paying manufacturing jobs, and the general sense of economic and social malaise. Meyer's novel received positive reviews, and many publications ranked it one of the best novels of the year.
Sandra Newman is an American writer. She has a BA from Polytechnic of Central London, and an MA from the University of East Anglia.
Sir Walter Raleigh was an English gentleman, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer, well known for popularising tobacco in England.
All the Time in the World: New and Selected Stories is a collection of short stories by American author E.L. Doctorow. This book was first published in 2011 by Random House.
Beautiful Ruins is a 2012 bestselling novel by Jess Walter. It is his sixth novel. The novel is a social satire critiquing Hollywood culture. Though not the explicit focus of the novel, receiving very little direct appearances in the novel, the characters' lives revolve around Elizabeth Taylor and her role in the movie Cleopatra, and the subsequent love affair between Taylor and Richard Burton.
You Exist Too Much is a debut novel by Zaina Arafat, published June 9, 2020 by Catapult. The book won the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction in 2021.