Internet reading that caught my eye over the past week. Megan Abbott’s Bloodthirsty Murderesses The thriller writer probes the psychological underpinnings of female rage. Because, Abbott says, “girls are darker than boys.” New Black Gothic Sheri-Marie Harrison, associate professor of English at the University of Missouri, explains what she calls the new black Gothic in […]
COLDWATER, Mich. — One October night in 2004, Curtis Dawkins smoked crack, dressed up for Halloween in a gangster costume and terrorized a household, killing one man and taking another hostage in a rampage that drew 24 patrol officers and a six-member SWAT team. He is serving a life sentence without parole in Michigan. After
An Addict, a Confessed Killer and Now a Debut Author – The New York Times Read More »
She entered popular culture as a princess in peril and endures as something much more complicated and interesting. Many things, really: a rebel commander; a witty internal critic of the celebrity machine; a teller of comic tales, true and embellished; an inspiring and cautionary avatar of excess and resilience; an emblem of the honesty we
Carrie Fisher, a Princess, a Rebel and a Brave Comic Voice – The New York Times Read More »
In 2016, we said good-bye to many literary luminaries. These authors have inspired us, challenged us to think deeply, and opened windows into the lives and struggles of others. Here we remember some of the award winners, trailblazers, and creators of beloved classics whose works will stand the test of time. Source: In Memoriam: 12
In Memoriam: 12 Authors We Lost Too Soon in 2016 Read More »
‘The Girl on the Train’: Here’s What It’s Really About I read Paula Hawkins’s novel The Girl on the Train eagerly because it was touted as a book for fans of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, which I loved. But I was disappointed in Train, which I found nowhere near as suspenseful or as psychologically adept
How Stephen King Made Pop Culture Weird If you’ve ever been to Austin, TX, you’ve seen the bumper stickers: “Keep Austin Weird.” Even my new hometown of Tacoma, WA, likes to call itself weird, as does Portland, OR, in the photo above. Lincoln Michel explains that these are not isolated occurrences: If you haven’t heard,
Celebrating Writing in Translation Language is a way to express the human experience, yet it also presents communication barriers. With the efforts of accomplished translators, however, those barriers can be overcome to foster artistic unity across linguistic boundaries. Source: National Translation Month (NTM) — Celebrating Writing in Translation
September is National Translation Month (NTM) — Celebrating Writing in Translation Read More »
ALAN MOORE GOES (VERY VERY) BIG WITH JERUSALEM Alan Moore’s novel Jerusalem weighs in at more than 1,200 pages. Joshua Zajdman has been carrying it around for a while, and people’s questions and comments about its size have triggered him to reflect: why are “big books” perceived so differently? How long have “big books” been
Under Pamela Paul, a New Books Desk Takes Shape at the ’Times’ One of the book resources I look at most often is coverage by The New York Times. In this article Publishers Weekly looks at recent changes in the way the paper covers book-related news: In mid August, New York Times executive editor Dean
Fall is the time for “big books,” whatever the page length, and some of the top fiction authors from around the world have new works coming, including Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Rabih Alameddine, Emma Donoghue, Jonathan Safran Foer and Michael Chabon. Ann Patchett, owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee,
Rich season of fiction expected this fall Read More »
