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Monday Miscellany

Homeless Outreach in Volumes: Books by Bike for ‘Outside’ People in Oregon This city [Portland, Oregon] has a deeply dyed liberal impulse beating in its veins around social and environmental causes, and a literary culture that has flourished like the blackberry thickets that mark misty Northwest woods. It is also one of the most bike-friendly, […]

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5 Under 35 Honorees Announced

BuzzFeed Books is honored to celebrate the fantastic young writers of the National Book Foundation’s 9th annual 5 Under 35, chosen by past winners and finalists of the National Book Awards. “The National Book Foundation’s 5 under 35 program is about supporting a rising generation of talented authors,” said Leslie Shipman, Assistant Director of the

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Monday Miscellany

Tragic fiction may leave you emotionally upset It might seem logical that reading a sad fictional story would be less upsetting than reading a less sad but true story. But new research suggests this is not the case: “Consumers may choose to read a tragic fictional story because they assume that knowing it was fictional

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Monday Miscellany

Required Reading: 10 Books We Read For Class That Will Change Your Life As summer winds down, many students turn with desperation to those lists of required summer reading that they put aside a couple of months ago. But not all assigned reading is dull and unfulfilling, the editors at Huffington Post say: Sometimes reading

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Monday Miscellany

The Feud Between Amazon, Hachette Publishing, and Readers Heats Up It’s difficult to keep up with all the nuances of this issue. Here are a couple of recent articles: Dispute Between Amazon and Hachette Takes an Orwellian Turn Maybe Amazon really is rattled by the whole Authors United phenomenon organized by Douglas Preston. The writers

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Monday Miscellany

Ranking Cormac McCarthy’s Greatest Books I’m a week behind with this, but I include it here because Cormac McCarthy is an author I haven’t yet worked on, and I’m glad to have the suggestions offered here: Trailing Philip Roth by a few months and Toni Morrison by two years, Cormac McCarthy (who turns 81 this

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The Decline of Harper Lee — Vulture

The Decline of Harper Lee — Vulture. Yesterday’s Monday Miscellany included a summary of the publication of a new book about Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, and Lee’s denial of cooperation on the book. This article paints a sad picture indeed. Having outlived most of her family and friends, Harper Lee, 88,

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Monday Miscellany

A New Book About To Kill a Mockingbird Author Harper Lee? Last week saw the announcement of a new book about Harper Lee, The Mockingbird Next Door by Chicago Tribune reporter Marja Mills. USA Today explains how Mills obtained material about the notoriously reclusive and publicity-shy Lee: Mills was able to penetrate Lee’s wariness by

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Monday Miscellany

Could reading dark literature harm your teenage children? This isn’t a new question, but this answer is fairly well balanced, with discussion from scientists for both sides of the issue. Judy Blume: ’I thought, this is America: we don’t ban books. But then we did’ A delightful interview with Judy Blume, who has her own

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Monday Miscellany

Vroom, Vroom, Hmmmm: Motorcycles As Literary Metaphor Confession time: I’ve only made it half way through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I keep the book on my shelf because I fully intend, someday, to finish it off. And so this report intrigued me: In literature, motorcycles — and the people

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