It’s hard to resist a list. That’s probably why there are so many of them all over the internet. Another reason is that bloggers are encouraged to make use of the list format because it’s one of the most popular formats for blog posts. For some reason, I’ve come across more lists than usual in […]
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The ghostwriter, the secret plot and a ‘grave-robbing’ Stieg Larsson sequel You may remember that Swedish author Stieg Larsson dropped dead shortly after delivering the manuscript of the third novel in what has come to be called his Millennium trilogy. His long-time live-in companion, Eva Gabrielsson, said that his laptop contained a nearly completed manuscript
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Reactions to Harper Lee’s recently published aren’t going away any time soon. Here are some more that I’ve collected. Again, this list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, but here I’ve included only those pieces that add something new to the discussion rather than just echoing what has already been said. I offer very short summaries
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Lee, Harper. Go Set a Watchman New York: HarperCollins, 2015 ISBN 978–0–06–240985–0 You won’t envision Gregory Peck when you read what Atticus Finch has to say to his daughter late in this novel: “You realize that our Negro population is backward, don’t you?” (p. 242) “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools
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I have finished reading Harper Lee’s newly released novel Go Set a Watchman and am collecting my thoughts. I read it slowly, taking copious notes. Probably like most people, I tried to read it in two mutually exclusive ways simultaneously: both with and without To Kill a Mockingbird as a touchstone. Figuring out how to
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John Fowles, The Art of Fiction No. 109 This article originally appeared in the Summer 1989 issue of The Paris Review. James R. Baker interviews John Fowles, author of, among others, The Collector (1963) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969). Fowles says that he was heavily influenced by the existentialists. When the interview asks if
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Way back in January 2010 Time magazine drew up a list of “the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923—the beginning of TIME”: All-TIME 100 Novels: The parameters: English language novels published anywhere in the world since 1923, the year that TIME Magazine began, which, before you ask, means that Ulysses (1922) doesn’t make the
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As the July 14th publication date of Harper Lee’s second novel, Go Set a Watchman, approaches, she is much in the news. Here are a couple of representative articles. Harper Lee Receives Copy of ‘Go Set a Watchman’ as Release Nears Alexandra Alter and Serge F. Kovaleski report in the New York Times on an
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7 Book Franchises We Really Need To Say Goodbye To Claire Fallon writes in the Huffington Post: Let’s be honest: Too many series and franchises are reworked and rebooted until there’s simply no life left in them. As much as fans may clamor to spend more money on another Dune book, for example, they’re more
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What’s Changed, and What Hasn’t, in the Town That Inspired “To Kill a Mockingbird” In a long piece for Smithsonian Magazine, Paul Theroux describes a visit to Monroeville, AL, home of author Harper Lee and inspiration for the fictional Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird: Monroeville is like many towns of its size in Alabama—indeed
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