Fiction

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15 Novels: Learning History through Reading Fiction

Novels Mentioned The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, translated by Berliani M. Nugrahani The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman My Brilliant Friend (and 3 companion novels) by by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier The Book Thief by Markus

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Close Reading: A Pivotal Scene in “The Silent Patient”

When I posted about The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, I wondered how many people actually engage with the text of mysteries or thrillers instead of just skimming to find out how the story ends. Michaelides leads the reader along so scintillatingly that a large part of the pleasure of reading this novel lies in

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Last Week's Links

Last Week’s Links

Here’s a short entry for this busy holiday week. In Fiction, It Was the Year of the Woman An interesting look at the bulk of novels published this year: They didn’t launch any franchises — no “girl”-titled blockbusters and probably no future Jennifer Lawrence vehicles — but collectively, they dominated a shrunken literary ecosystem. Each

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Last Week's Links

Last Week’s Links

Five Writing Tips from Tana French I usually stay away from tips aimed specifically at writers, but I found some of French’s tips here useful for readers as well as writers, especially what she has to say about characters: There’s no such thing as ‘men’ or ‘women.’ There’s only the individual character you’re writing… .

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Last Week's Links

8 Tips For Overcoming ’Reader’s Block’ I can’t remember ever encountering reader’s block. My own problem is usually the opposite: other life duties that prevent me from spending as much time as I’d like to spend reading. Nevertheless, Emily Petsko asserts: “Reader’s block” is a well-documented problem, and even avid readers occasionally suffer from it.

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Last Week's Links

Last Week’s Links

THE SIMPLE JOY OF REREADING TO BREAK A READING SLUMP Julia Rittenberg has a confession to make: I used to have a great deal of anxiety around keeping up with others’ reading paces. Social media heightened my awareness of reading habits, and worries that my own were woefully behind. I would be unable to choose

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Last Week's Links

Last Week’s Links

Introduction to Reading Other Women At a time when female “others”—black, brown, and yellow—together constitute the largest block of the world’s population, their persistent invisibility to Westerners not only means they are overlooked in the present moment, but that they are consistently erased from the historical record. Rafia Zakaria reacts against “the challenges that arise

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Last Week’s Links: Halloween Edition

It’s only the middle of the month, so you’ve got some time to get into the Halloween book/film mood. Here are some suggestions. WOMEN, TRAUMA, AND HAUNTED HOUSES Sarah Smeltzer writes: The haunted house is a staple of the horror genre and it’s easy to see why. Your house should be familiar and it should

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