Penguin Classics and Others Work to Diversify Offerings From the Canon
“Across the industry, publishers are releasing titles by authors who were previously marginalized or entirely lost to history.”
The critical and commercial success of these titles is a result of a combination of factors: initiative on the part of writers’ families or estates; changing leadership within the publishing industry; and a willingness among modern readers to engage with unknown texts.
After a Husband’s Betrayal, Turning to Mystery Novels
The whole point of a mystery is to create a plot so suspenseful that the reader can’t put it down—which is exactly what I needed, to get back into reading. A terrible crime has been committed (usually a murder) and a detective or amateur sleuth then applies logic to figure out who did it, what happened and why until the perpetrator is brought to justice.
Laura Hilgers turned to mysteries for comfort after her divorce.
I, fortunately, do not have the same reason for liking mysteries. See 5 Examples of Why I Like Mysteries.
Will the coronavirus outbreak lead to new L.A. crime fiction? The jury is out
Los Angeles has been the locus of crime fiction for nearly 100 years. Here’s a discussion of some of the novels, characters, and authors LA has produced as well as speculation about what kinds of novels the current health crisis will give rise to.
Genre Primer: Short Story Examples in (Almost) Every Genre
If you want to use your time at home to broaden your literary horizons, let Annika Barranti Klein be your guide. She offers links to free online stories, plus the names of a novel or two, in the following categories:
- science fiction
- steampunk
- low fantasy
- second world/high fantasy
- portal fantasy
- fairytale
- myth
- eldritch
- magical realism
- paranormal
- mystery
- thriller/suspense
- noir
- historical
- western
- romance
- horror
- gothic
- literary
And yes, she includes definitions in case you don’t know, as I didn’t, what some of these terms mean (e.g., eldritch, low fantasy, second world/high fantasy, portal fantasy).
Ann Patchett on Why We Need Life-Changing Books Right Now
Ann Patchett on what she learned by reading the books of middle-grade novelist Kate DiCamillo. Patchett began with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which, she says, changed her life.
9 Great Books With Lonely Protagonists
According to Hillary Kelly:
there’s a certain kind of isolation that makes for a vivid reading experience — when the protagonist is quite literally all alone, whether by circumstance or choice, either struggling to be seen or hoping to disappear even further. The novel, after all, is the perfect medium for that message, the only art form in which an interior monologue doesn’t regularly come off as hokey. If you’re into that kind of thing, and want to grapple a little harder with the bizarre swaddling effect that COVID-19 has had on our ability to simply stand close to another human, here are nine books that offer insights into the wild terrain of the isolated mind.
14 Enormous Crime Books for the Long Days Ahead
“. . . we are stuck at home, and perhaps now is the time to rediscover the lengthy novel,” writes Molly Odintz.
If you follow this blog, you know I love Big Books. Here’s Odintz’s list of 14 crime novels, all of which meet the Big Book definition of 500 or more pages.
© 2020 by Mary Daniels Brown
