Literary Links

Who’s Really Writing Celebrity Novels?

“The writers and agents working behind the scenes tell us how it actually works.”

“. . . what does it mean when a celebrity decides to write fiction?” Sophie Vershbow interviewed some “ writers and agents working behind the scenes on similar books [to] tell us how it actually works.”

Booker prize 2024: the six shortlisted books reviewed by our experts

Six novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The winner will be announced on November 12. Here six professors review the shortlisted contenders.

‘Dark Tourism’ Appeals to Travelers Captivated by Death

“Tourists often visit sites marked by death, tragedy, and disaster out of macabre curiosity. What they typically find there is enlightenment, empathy, and a connection to history.”

Jennifer Stavros looks into why people are drawn to visit “places that are connected to the macabre, or historical sites where death and suffering took place.” Her conclusion: “Perhaps the illumination we get by going to a space connected to mortality can serve as a light to teach us what’s necessary to conquer the darknesses that occur in our everyday journeys—before our stories someday cease to exist as well.”

Joan Didion Remains as Elusive as Ever. These Books Want to Fix That.

“Since her death, Didion has become a literary subject as popular for her image and writing as for the fascination she inspired for almost half a century.”

Casey Schwartz discusses the following books featuring Joan Didion that have been written since her death in 2021:

• Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik: Novelist Eve Babitz was a friend of Didion’s in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s, “[b]ut their friendship lapsed when Babitz decided she couldn’t take Didion’s edits of her work, or Didion’s voice in her head.”
• The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne, nephew to Joan Didion through her marriage to John Gregory Dunne.
• We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine by Alissa Wilkinson, which focuses on “the almost 40 years that Didion and Dunne worked for Hollywood.”
• The Uptown Local by Cory Leadbeater, a memoir about the last few years of Didion’s life when Leadbeater worked as her assistant.

Schwartz also alludes to the possibility of future books after the spring of 2025, when “the New York Public Library will allow researchers to see its collection of Didion’s and Dunne’s papers, which arrived in 354 boxes.”

IYKYK: When Novels Speak a Language Only Part of the Internet Gets

All the bodily twinges and creaks remind me I’m getting older, but what strikes me most is all the popular culture exhortations that mean absolutely nothing to me. Greta Rainbow addresses this phenomenon in current fiction, with the rise of the “‘reference novel,’ a fictional story laden with real-life people, places, and products.” In these works, “a pileup of proper nouns” often serves not “to make narrative meaning, but to signify the context in which the book is supposed to be read.”

Children’s reading rates plummet to lowest since records began, National Literacy Trust data shows

In the U.K., recent research published by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) finds that “children and young people’s enjoyment of reading has fallen to the lowest level in almost two decades over the past year.”

This course uses crime novels to teach critical thinking

Here’s another entry from Uncommon Courses, “an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.” Sally C. Harris, distinguished lecturer in English at the University of Tennessee, explains how she uses detective fiction to teach two critical lessons: “the importance of reading critically and the importance of historical and social context.”

How Do You Get Kids to Read? Give Them Pizza.

“Pizza Hut’s Book It! literacy program, founded in 1984, has reached more than 70 million students — and counts the radio host Charlamagne Tha God among its fans.”

I didn’t know this program is still alive and well. Sarah Bahr profiles Pizza Hut’s “Book It! program, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month.” According to the article, “the program has provided more than 1.5 billion free pizzas to young readers.” 

What Words Are For

Kaitlyn Greenidge writes, powerfully, about the power of writing in these troubled times:

I am not sure what words are for anymore. I became a writer because, daughter of a lawyer that I am, a core belief of mine was that if only I could make the right argument, find the right words, I could sway someone’s belief, could make them love justice. I don’t think that’s what writing is for anymore—not in this version of a world we are living in. I think writing is for naming reality.

The Book News is Generally… Good?

Maris Kreizman, noting that “we could all use some good news,” offers “some things that are making me feel optimistic about book culture in general.”

The thing on her list that gladdens me the most is this: “Book blogging is back”:

now it feels like voice and personality-driven blogs that had their golden age in the early aughts are officially back. And with more blogging comes exposure to voices different from the ones that are regularly published in traditional publications, or the ones that are the loudest on social media.

© 2024 by Mary Daniels Brown