Sympathy for the De Vil: Reading Beyond Likability “As a writer and enthusiastic consumer of unlikable characters, I’m often puzzled by viewers or readers who criticize a story for having these types of characters,” writes novelist and English teacher John Copenhaver. This is a topic that just won’t go away. I Don’t Read to Like […]
Spain’s literary world has been thrown into chaos after a coveted book prize was given to “Carmen Mola” — a lauded female thriller writer who turned out to be the pseudonym of three men. Source: Carmen Mola: Lauded Spanish female crime writer revealed to be 3 men – CNN I found this oddly appropriate, since
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All Our Possible Lives: On Sylvia Plath, Matt Haig, and the Female Suicide Narrative “Savannah Marciezyk Compares Textual Interpretations of The Midnight Library and The Bell Jar” Sylvia Plath and Matt Haig have much in common, but the differences between their receptions and textual interpretations are remarkable. Plath’s novel is famously (and controversially) autobiographical. Haig
An Innocent Abroad: Joan Didion’s Midlife Crisis Novelist, short story writer, critic and retired English professor Scott Bradfield grew up in California but had difficulty “[l]earning how to write fictions set in California”: California is filled with so many vivid pleasures, smells, textures, and absurdities of human character that it feels difficult, or even impossible,
Hey mystery lovers, check out all these great mentions of the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, in contemporary literature and pop culture! Source: Clue Attitude: Agatha Christie in Contemporary Literature and Pop Culture Oh dear, I missed Agatha Christie’s birthday, which was yesterday (September 15). So here, with my apologies for being late, is
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The Man Behind the Myth: Should We Question the Hero’s Journey? Sarah E. Bond and Joel Christensen dispute Joseph Campbell’s well-known theory “which proposed the existence of a singular ‘hero’s journey’ (also known as the Monomyth), as experienced by ancient heroes such as Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey.” How Extortion Scams and Review Bombing Trolls Turned
On the Books: How to Keep Track of New Releases I have a list of every book that I’ve read since July 1991. I started keeping it on my very first computer, an IBM PCjr. Over the years I’ve managed to maintain the list through several computer and computer program changes, including the biggest computer
Authors say Texas state museum canceled book event examining slavery’s role in Battle of the Alamo This HAS to be the week’s lead story. A promotional event for a book examining the role slavery played leading up to the Battle of the Alamo that was scheduled at the Bullock Texas State History Museum on Thursday
THE GREAT RIGHT-WING PUBLISHING DIVIDE WIDENS If you’re still keeping up with the publishing hubbub, here’s another story on the formation of a new publishing company being started by a couple of conservative industry executives, “Louise Burke, a former top publisher at Simon & Schuster, and Kate Hartson, the former editorial director at Hachette Book
The 2021 Pride Reading List: 75 New Books to Read Now I’m leading with this list because June is Pride month “in honor of the LGBTQ+ community.” Greenwood author’s first-person history of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre published 100 years later The 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre rightly generated a lot of press coverage.
