PEN America Rejects Calls to Cancel Coney Barrett Book Last week’s Literary Links included an article about Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s book advance as well as an article about PEN America’s report on diversity in the publishing industry. This week we have a link to Publishers Weekly’s news that PEN America has condemned the […]
Book Banners Are Weaponizing Legitimate Resources: Book Censorship News, October 28, 2022 Danika Ellis writes, “One of the strategies book banners are using that makes me nervous is that they are weaponizing resources that were never meant to defend book banning.” She’s particularly concerned about “resources that were specifically made to help teachers and parents
How Do the Books We Read Change Our Brains? “Gregory Berns on Measuring the Effects of a Really Good Story” In this article, adapted from his book The Self Delusion: The New Neuroscience of How We Invent—and Reinvent—Our Identities, Emory University psychology professor Gregory Berns describes a neuroimaging experiment he devised to measure whether reading
Opinion Have we forgotten what a public library is for? The executive directors of the Michigan Library Association and Michigan ACLU reflected on the recent vote to defund a public library outside of Grand Rapids over its display of LGBTQ books. Categories: Censorship, Libraries The Ultimate Guide to Wondrous Independent Bookstores Shortly after opting out
The Queen of arts: Elizabeth II in fiction “It wasn’t until 1988 that the Queen began to make appearances in fiction, but since then she’s had many, largely sympathetic portrayals” Categories: Fiction, Literary History How Will Overturning of Roe v. Wade Influence Book Trends? “Without Roe v. Wade, we probably never would have gotten the
How Librarians Can Counter Lies from Book Banners This problem isn’t going to go away any time soon, so we need to stay informed. Categories: Censorship, Libraries 5 Messy Characters You Can’t Help But Love My favorite phrase for describing humans is “deliciously messy.” So I immediately zoomed in on this list by Zeniya Cooley:
“writing a book is still bloody hard work. I usually start by letting an idea percolate and take shape in my brain, which looks a lot like re-watching things on Netflix and shopping for stationery. Then I superfluously color-code an Excel spreadsheet and use it to plot out the major twists, turns and reveals. Then
Quotation: On the Writing Process Read More »
American Library Association’s New Book Censorship Data Released in Advance of Banned Books Week As you have probably already guessed, the statistics are pretty grim. Category: Censorship Series on Historical Fiction from The Atlantic On the occasion of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, The Atlantic carries a series of feature articles about historical fiction.
“. . . telling stories and writing fiction is a way of managing and exploring my own impulses and emotions. I’m not at the mercy of my terrors, my shame. I push the dredged-up emotions into shapes that are enjoyable in the end, even if their content seems violent or disturbing.” — novelist and poet
Peter Straub on Horror Read More »
5 Books that Celebrate Books This is a list of stories that pay homage to the world of books; whether through the comfort and sanctuary of libraries, the careful crafting of a narrative, or the mysticism and power of books themselves, each contain different versions of the same awe and appreciation of words, stories and
