"I know myself," he cried, "but that is all-" - F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

F. Scott Fitzgerald - An Annotated Bibliography

The American author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940) published his first novel 'This Side of Paradise' (1920) almost 100 years ago. Yet, even though his writing is firmly rooted in the era he lived in - the heyday of the Roaring Twenties - his works still feel contemporary. The age of the mass media had just begun when Fitzgerald started his career, but still he anticipated how omnipresent images would impact the way we lead our lives. Beauty matters to his heroes. Glittering surfaces attract them. Yet more often than not, their journeys end in bitter disappointment when they realize that the world does not live up to their ideals - neither in an aesthetic nor in an ethical sense.

This site provides an annotated bibliography of Fitzgerald's works and offers an overview of his literary work and its movie adaptations, the biographies and other books about his writing as well as links to other websites dedicated to Fitzgerald.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing:

• The novels
• The short stories
• Movie scripts and plays
• Letters and essays

Books about F. Scott Fitzgerald:

• Biographies
• Books about Fitzgerald's writings
• Novels about Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald Movies:

• The movie adaptations
• Films with or about Fitzgerald

Now in movie theatres: The Great Gatsby by Baz Luhrmann

Don't let Jay-Z's contemporary soundtrack and the spectacular 3D effects fool you: Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby is another adaptation that is so respectful to the details of the novel that it completely misses its point. It's how Fitzgerald uses language, precise, yet brimming with meaning, to explore how one can live in a world that is bound to disappoint our hopes, how one can fight a fight that one is destined to lose, that makes Gatsby great. Yet, if you reduce the story to its plot mechanics, you end up with empty spectacle, no matter how colorful the imagery and how many times you quote the original text. Ultimately, this Gatsby has more in common with the action blockbusters it competes with at the summer box office than one would expect: it's a movie that primarily aims to overwhelm and stun your senses, but that fails to convey any ideas or emotions.

New website: Scottandzelda.com

A beautiful new website - Scottandzelda.com - commemorates the lives of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in pictures and quotes. I discovered it when up at 3 a.m. in the morning - due to jetlag - and could not get myself to stop scrolling until I had traversed the entire timeline, even though the story was already familiar to me.

Feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated.