I came across so many interesting articles this week that it’s hard to limit my list. Here are some of my favorites.
On the Centennial of Iris Murdoch’s Birth, Remembering a 20th-Century Giant
The intensity of Murdoch’s gaze, boring into you from the dust jackets of her many novels, seemed a promise of the books’ contents. For decades this remarkable writer delivered prickly, sophisticated and somewhat unearthly fiction about good and evil and sex and morality. She trailed a large, large muse. She deftly moved her ideas about, positioning them like the slabs used to build Stonehenge.
In this year, the centennial of Iris Murdoch’s birth and 20 years after her death at age 79, Dwight Garner laments that “her posthumous reputation is in semi-shambles.” To help restore her reputation to what he considers to be its rightful place—on “the list of the most elite writers in English of the second half of the 20th century”—he examines at length his favorite of her novels, The Sea, The Sea (1978), which won the Booker Prize.
Adult Books for Fall 2019
This is the starting page for Publishers Weekly’s recommendations of fall releases in the following categories:
- Art, Architecture & Photography
- Business & Economics
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Cooking & Food
- Essays & Literary Criticism
- Literary Fiction
- History
- Lifestyle
- Memoirs & Biographies
- Mysteries & Thrillers
- Poetry
- Politics & Current Events
- Romance & Erotica
- SF, Fantasy & Horror
- Science
MAKE A DIFFERENCE: READ LOCAL AUTHORS
You shop local, you eat local—but are you reading local, too? If you’re not, you’re missing out. Local authors and the stories they tell can change your life—and your community. And all you have to do is read a book you love.
Six years ago we moved from St. Louis, Missouri, to Tacoma, Washington. During those six years, one of my reading goals has been to read books by local authors. Although I didn’t need this article to explain to me why reading local authors is a worthwhile undertaking, I did appreciate the tips on how to find their books.
Viet Thanh Nguyen: Writing to Re-member
Just yesterday, I asked my students how many of them had watched at least one American movie or read one American book about the Vietnam War, and everyone raised their hand. When I asked how many had read one book or seen one movie by a Vietnamese person, nobody, or perhaps one or two, had. The legacies of colonialism and imperialism have created privileged sectors in the West that function as feedback loops. We often only read books or watch movies that reflect our values. In systems like Hollywood, the stories of poor people from other countries are not that interesting to the rest of the world and therefore don’t get told.
Half of women over 40 say older women in fiction are clichés, survey finds
A recent survey by Gransnet, the UK’s biggest social media site for older people, and publisher HQ (HarperCollins) found that 51% of women over 40 “feel older women in fiction books tend to fall into clichéd roles.” Here are some of the most interest findings from the survey:
- 47% of women over 40 say there are not enough books about middle-aged or older women.
- “when older characters do appear in fiction, half of women (50%) say they’ve seen them being portrayed as baffled by smartphones, computers or the internet – and think it’s insulting.”
- 75% buy their books online.
As a result of the survey findings, Gransnet and HQ are launching a fiction writing competition for women writers over age 40. The article contains more information on both the survey and the writing competition.
© 2019 by Mary Daniels Brown
