The Open Road Blog

Happy National Teacher Day! In honor, Open Road Media is proud to feature several moving videos, which explore the tremendous dedication and influence of teachers. Enjoy, and share with those special teachers who have impacted you.

Watch Michael Chabon, Mary Glickman, and Pat Conroy speak fondly about particular teachers who supported them. "As a student, I had a lot of encouragement at crucial moments from teachers," says Chabon. Remembering her Catholic education, Glickman talks about a nun who would take her to museums in Boston and Conroy, who attended a military college, reminisces about a teacher, named ...

Your favorite show was on television. You had to walk the dog. You read the Cliff's Notes (or the review in the New York Times) and got the gist. And somehow, you never managed to actually read the book.

But when someone asks you about Bestseller X or Classic Novel Y at a dinner party, you fumble your way through the conversation and nod knowingly, right?

We consider ourselves smart, moderately well read folks. We’ve all got books that we meant to read—but just haven't gotten around to yet. We’ve got the best of intentions, but somehow there are ...

Iconic Ebooks Are Titles That Are Entrenched in Popular Culture
and Are Now Being Introduced to a New Generation of Readers Digitally

(October 18, 2011) Open Road Integrated Media, a digital publisher and multimedia content company, announced today that it will digitally publish and market Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, the groundbreaking international bestseller that revolutionized female sexuality, as an ebook throughout the world in the English language. Fear of Flying will be the first title in Open Road's new Iconic Ebooks imprint. The ebook, with a new cover and an illustrated biography featuring never-before-seen photos, goes on sale today....

Today’s featured excerpt for Banned Books Week is Candy by Terry Southern. Terry Southern (1924–1995) was an American satirist, author, journalist, screenwriter, and educator and is considered one of the great literary minds of the second half of the twentieth century. His bestselling novel Candy (1958) is a spoof on pornography based on Voltaire’s Candide. It established Southern as a literary and pop culture icon.

Initially banned in France and England, Candy pushed all of America’s post-war puritanical buttons and became a bestseller. Read an extended excerpt from the book below.

“Without freedom of speech, there is no freedom.”

—Bette Greene

Today marks the start of Banned Books Week, a weeklong celebration of the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Sponsored by the American Library Association since 1982, this week shines a light on the benefits of intellectual freedom and raises important questions about the themes, ideas, and concepts resonating—for better or for worse—in the cultural consciousness.

In anticipation of the week ahead, we asked a diverse collection of authors to share their thoughts and experiences related to censorship. Hit play to see Pat Conroy, Bette Greene, ...

No need to be entering the classroom yourself to stock up on great literature! Here's our back to school sale for grown-ups. These titles are $3.99 and up through September 13. Whether you like short stories, memoirs, suspense, experimental fiction, or more, we've got a title for you! (And if you are looking for our children's sale, here it is!)

Georgia Boy by Erskine Caldwell

Fourteen stories that follow a young boy coming of age in a dysfunctional family in the rural South. Meet William Stroop, a young son of the South whose charming voice and mordant observations of family and culture ...

Here is author Terry Southern’s 1949 student identification card from La Sorbonne. While abroad, he entered the literary scene and met many individuals with whom he would later collaborate, including William Burroughs, Richard Seaver, and Henry Green.

After attending college in Texas and serving in the army, Southern played a vital role in the expatriate American café society of 1950s Paris. He befriended other intellectuals and met with eminent French theorists like Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. The dynamic intellectual environment of the French capital catalyzed the production of his first novel, Flash and Filigree, a satire ...

Open Road Media wishes you a wonderful Father's Day weekend.

To celebrate, we’ve assembled four original videos featuring insightful commentary about growing up with literary fathers from the sons and daughters of Andre Dubus, Stanley Elkin, William Styron, Terry Southern, John Gardner, and James Jones. Catch glimpses of these great twentieth century literary giants through the eyes of their children, listen to tales of their filial devotion and love, and discover what these men were like in their ordinary lives.

Literary Fathers: Gardner, Elkin, Southern, Styron

Literary Fathers: James Jones and Andre Dubus

 ...

“Terry Southern was one of the first and best of the new wave of American writers, defining the cutting edge of black comedy.”—Joseph Heller

Open Road Media announces the publication of Terry Southern’s Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes on June 14, 2011. It joins five other Terry Southern titles previously made available as ebooks in May, including Blue Movie, Flash and Filigree, Candy, The Magic Christian, and Texas Summer.

An underground classic, Red-Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes is a brilliant collection of incisive, darkly comic, devastating stories and wide-ranging pieces by America’s master satirist. It ...

“Terry Southern is the most profoundly witty writer of our generation.” —Gore Vidal

Open Road Media announces the publication of five titles by legendary novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern as ebooks on May 3, 2011, and one title on June 7, 2011.

Terry Southern (1924–1995), an American satirist, author, journalist, screenwriter, and educator, is considered one of the great literary minds of the second half of the twentieth century. His bestselling novels—Candy, a spoof on pornography based on Voltaire’s Candide, and The Magic Christian, a satire of the grossly rich—established Southern as a literary and pop ...