The 50 Greatest Apocalypse Novels
“Apropos of . . . Nothing”
I’m including this list here because, really, how could I not? How many of these have you read?
I’ve read five, and I have two more on the top of my TBR pile. I think that’s pretty good, given that I usually avoid most science fiction and horror, which many of these are.
In 2020, Is Science Fiction Still an Escape?
“Matthew B. Tepper, president of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society—now celebrating its 86th anniversary—discusses these strange times and explains why (the late) Ray Bradbury is still a member in good standing.”
And always remember: Science fiction isn’t about the future; it’s about the present.
How Lolita Author Vladimir Nabokov Helped Ruth Bader Ginsburg Find Her Voice
He [Vladimir Nabokov] was a man who was in love with the sound of words. It had to be the right word and in the right word order. So he changed the way I read, the way I write. He was an enormous influence.
—Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The late Supreme Court justice on the importance of her English classes taught by Vladimir Nabokov at Cornell, where she earned her undergraduate degree.
Reading literary versus popular fiction promotes different socio-cognitive processes, study suggests
Recently published research out of Italy “suggests that the type of fiction a person reads affects their social cognition in different ways. Specifically, literary fiction was associated with increased attributional complexity and accuracy in predicting social attitudes, while popular fiction was linked to increased egocentric bias.”
But, emphasizes lead author Emanuele Castano of the University of Trento and the National Research Council in Italy:
We are not saying that literary fiction is better than popular fiction. As human beings, we need the two types of thinking that are trained by these two types of fiction. The literary type pushes us to assess others as unique individuals, to withhold judgment, to think deeply. It is important, but it can paralyze us in our attempt to navigate the social world. The popular type reinforces our socially-learned and culturally-shared schemas . . .
Rebecca and beyond: the creative allure of gothic Cornwall
The recent Netflix movie version of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier has prompted new interest in Cornwall, also the setting for the recent PBS drama Poldark.
According to Joan Passey, teaching associate in Victorian literature and culture at the University of Bristol:
Cornwall’s legends, landscape, and distinctive identity lent themselves to the gothic imagination from the end of the 18th century. As far afield as the US, Cornwall was perceived as a place of hauntings, madness, and death — a foreign, liminal threat composed of precipices and thresholds which would influence subsequent representations of the county.
Cornwall has remained a central location in the gothic literary tradition that has lasted more than 200 years.
Why Are We Learning About White America’s Historical Atrocities from TV?
How “Watchmen” and “Lovecraft Country” got stuck filling in the gaps in our education.
Author Elwin Cotman writes, “I learned the truth about the past and present of white terrorism from my parents, who grew up in the Jim Crow South and had firsthand experience.” Here he discusses the significance of the fact that most Americans are now learning about atrocities against Black people in the U.S. from television rather than from history classes.
© 2020 by Mary Daniels Brown
