WHY READ FICTION IN THIS AGE OF ATROCITY?
Content Warning: This piece discusses recent sexual assault headlines.
I want to be as frank with you as is possible: it is increasingly hard for me to find joy or purpose in reading lately, specifically novels. I find myself asking, why read fiction at all when the world is falling apart around me?
D.R. Baker, “a transgender, nonbinary person,” continues to grapple with this question as the distressing headlines continue to pile up.
How to Spend a Literary Long Weekend in Hartford, Connecticut
Because I was born, and spent the first 19 years of my life, in Connecticut, here’s a literary tour of significant places in and around the state’s capital of Hartford. Featured writers include “Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Wallace Stevens, and more.”
Herman Melville at Home
Jill Lepore searches for a picture of the private Herman Melville in The New Yorker during the celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth.
THE MOST POPULAR UNDER-THE-RADAR LIBRARY BOOKS ACROSS THE U.S. SO FAR THIS YEAR
Bestseller lists and book recommendations of best books to read abound, but in this piece Kelly Jensen discusses the Panorama Project, which “looks at the books most frequently requested at libraries across the U.S. and breaks down the popularity by region.” This project can produce a glimpse below all the big, popular titles for “a more micro level look at books which are popular by specific areas of the country.”
The result is lists of fiction and nonfiction for both adults and YA readers exclusive of “well known bestsellers, book club selections and other heavily promoted titles.” Look here for suggestions of books your regional neighbors are checking out from their local libraries.
THE NOVELIST WHO SCANDALIZED VICTORIAN ENGLAND
the novels of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and the “sensation” fiction she pioneered, left an imprint on literature that remains today.
At age 17 Braddon began acting “in everything from comedies to burlesques to Shakespeare.” This background in theater gave her a sense of story and plot that allowed her to turn to writing novels for the masses, books that “earned [her] a reputation as a writer with a knack for presenting the more scandalous side of the upper classes.”
© 2019 by Mary Daniels Brown
