Literary Links

The Rise of Ragebait Lit

“This spring, arguing about books in the group chat is back”

In Harper’s Bazaar, Maris Kreizman discusses the predominance of “ragebait lit,” books that “are dominating the cultural conversation.”

“The premises of these books may have inspired more than their share of hot takes . . . but the conversations around them also allow us to question where we are and what our feminist ideals have become.”

The Sound of Imminence: Ruth Ozeki in Praise of the Typewriter

An entry from Ruth Ozeki’s writing process journal:

I am not writing. I have spent the last month traveling, giving talks, teaching, and buying vintage typewriters. Why am I doing this? Because I am an obsessive compulsive who has a fetish for old writing implements, but that’s not the only reason. I have faith that these typewriters are going to lead me somewhere. I don’t know where, but I hope somewhere interesting. I feel a character inside me, compelling me to buy vintage typewriters. Who is this character? Who is s/he trying to become?

Ozeki writes mainly on a laptop computer, she tells us, “but I like using analog writing tools—typewriters, fountain pens—when I get stuck. . . . The typewriters help. They require a more visceral, muscular involvement in the writing process. They remind me to write deliberately, to slow my mind so that my fingers can keep up.”

Her latest book is The Typing Lady.

How to Recreate the Techniques of Horror Films in a Novel

As most readers will tell you, the book is almost always better than the movie. In the reverse of this comparison novelist Claire Fuller explains how an obsession with three horror movies—Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, and The Stepford Wives—influenced her most recent novel, Hunger and Thirst.

Fuller also points out what characteristic of horror movies novelists should ignore.

Why the American Novel Refused to Grow Up

“For the critic Leslie Fiedler, the country’s best and worst fiction was shaped by visions of escape from society—and therefore from maturity.”

Becca Rothfeld takes a look at critic Leslie Fiedler’s “classic and controversial study ‘Love and Death in the American Novel,’ originally published in 1960 and reissued by New York Review Books this spring.”

Both Fiedler and Rothfeld examine the concept of The American Novel.

Writers & Readers: Reviewing Books Made Me a Better Novelist.

“Criticism is an art form, the same way writing fiction is, and I spent a lot of time trying to get better at it,” writes Charlie Jane Anders. Anders was the monthly science fiction and fantasy book reviewer for the Washington Post until the newspaper killed off its entire book-coverage section. 

There’s a lot of information here for book bloggers. Anders explains what criticism involves:

getting into the mechanics and flow of what an author was doing, and how they were doing it. What kind of devices was the author using, and how did they function? Most of all, how did they fail and succeed on their own terms? To me, the art of criticism is about judging a book based on what it sets out to do, not what I wish it were doing instead.

This kind of close reading can also benefit writers: “So, if you are an author who wants to get better at writing and to feel more part of a community of writers, I would encourage you to do some book reviewing. Start your own website. Or post your reviews online somewhere else. Or find a publication that needs a book reviewer.”

Call It a ‘Book-cation’ or a ‘Readaway,’ Literary Travel Is Having a Moment

“Resort book clubs, tour companies, hotel libraries and a growing number of literary festivals are offering readers new ways to indulge their interests.”

In the New York Times, Elaine Glusac reports on the rising popularity of “trips that visit a locale of a favorite book, a place where an author lived or simply where the conditions are conducive to reading.” 

“Resort book clubs, hotel libraries and a growing number of literary festivals are also offering readers new ways to indulge readers’ interests.”

How Lit Mags Are Dealing With AI-Slop Submissions

I can’t let a week go by without a reference to the ways in which artificial intelligence impacts our lives, especially the lives of readers. Here Jasmine Vojdani takes on the issue of how “literary-magazine editors are now faced with the dilemma of whether to screen submissions for prose generated with the so-called help of AI and how.”

Why Reading Is Now Restless

“AI has already changed writing. Now the technology is changing what it means to read.”

Well, all right, two pieces about AI. 

In The Atlantic, Walt Hunter, professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, considers “the tight relationship between a reader and a work of literature, and the ways that the advent of AI may damage that bond, if it hasn’t done so already.”

In the absence of the author, or of the certainty that one exists, we may default to a style of reading that is self-conscious, hyperaware, restless, and anxiety-driven. We may struggle to immerse ourselves in a book, and instead hover at a safe distance, or dip in and out, worried that we’ll be fooled once again. Nothing less than the pleasure of reading is at stake.

© 2026 by Mary Daniels Brown