How to Be a Good Literary Citizen (in Seven Easy Steps) Maris Kreizman writes about “literary citizenship . . . an amorphous kind of concept, often changing with the moment, but needed more than ever today when corporate interests have a stranglehold on the arts, literary institutions are being devastated by the cancellation of NEA […]
The Ultimate Fall 2025 Reading List “95 BOOKS THE CRITICS THINK YOU SHOULD READ THIS SEASON” LitHub’s annual list, prepared by Emily Temple: This season, I processed 28 lists, which collectively recommended a total of 466 books. 95 of these were included 3 times or more, and these I present to you in descending order
Today’s starting point is a favorite of mine, the novella We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. first degree Jeannette Walls’s father had big plans to someday build a glass castle, which she describes in her memoir The Glass Castle. second degree The word castle also figures in the title of The
6 Degrees of Separation Read More »
Popular and critically acclaimed novelist Thomas Perry, best known for The Butcher’s Boy (1982) and the Jane Whitefield series, has died.
Thomas Perry on Writing Read More »
The Making of America’s Frontier Mythology Was the Making of America Just as individuals have life stories, so do nations, ethnic groups, and other collective aspects of culture and society. In this excerpt from the book The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West, Paul Andrew Hutton examines how, beginning in
Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature Read More »
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When I was in grad school for the final time, one of my professors removed all the semicolons from the first paper I submitted to her. In high dudgeon, I fired up the word processor and changed them all to periods—not because I agreed with her, but because she had all the power. Since this
In Honor of Punctuation Day Read More »
Guess what day it is! It’s September 22nd, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthdays, which is now celebrated worldwide as Hobbit Day. Back in 2018, when my husband and I took a trip that included a few days in New Zealand, I hoped we’d get to see the location that Peter Jackson created as the setting
Federal judge overturns part of Florida’s book ban law, drawing on nearly 100 years of precedent protecting First Amendment access to ideas James B. Blasingame is a professor of English at Arizona State University and a former high school English teacher who has “tried to learn as much as I can about the history of
#bookstodon #BookBlog #literature This Is Your Brain on Tropes: Why Readers are Addicted to the Familiar In the world of literature, a trope is: Monique Snyman explains that “tropes aren’t just lazy storytelling, as so many people like to say. Tropes are brain candy. And our brains are wired to crave them.” How Publishing Has
People Are Trying to ‘Deprogram’ Their MAGA Parents Through Book Clubs “Divisive politics have led people to go “no contact” with their right-wing parents. Some hope reading together could help bridge the gap.” A report from Wired. The Psychology Of Suspense: Why Are Thrillers So Addicting? I’m fond of thrillers, although I never thought to
