John Irving, The Art of Fiction No. 93 I’m not a twentieth-century novelist, I’m not modern, and certainly not postmodern. I follow the form of the nineteenth-century novel; that was the century that produced the models of the form. I’m old-fashioned, a storyteller. I’m not an analyst and I’m not an intellectual. WHICH BOOKS DO […]
Internet reading that caught my eye over the past week. Megan Abbott’s Bloodthirsty Murderesses The thriller writer probes the psychological underpinnings of female rage. Because, Abbott says, “girls are darker than boys.” New Black Gothic Sheri-Marie Harrison, associate professor of English at the University of Missouri, explains what she calls the new black Gothic in
These are the stories from the internet that piqued my interest over the last week. Why We Don’t Read, Revisited Caleb Crain, in a follow-up to a decade-old report on Americans’ reading habits, reports that the time Americans spend reading continues to decline. “Television, rather than the Internet, likely remains the primary force distracting Americans
Source: Women’s Prize for Fiction Revealing the 2018 Women’s Prize shortlist… – Women’s Prize for Fiction
Every December 31st I sit down with the list of books I read that year and choose the best ones. I usually end up with 10 bests plus 5 honorable mentions. I include this many because I’m fortunate enough to be in the time of life when I can choose to read whatever I want,
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Grafton, Sue. Y is for Yesterday Random House Audio, © 2017 (print edition also © 2017) Recommended I’m always eager to read the newest installment of Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series. However, this time my pleasure in digging into it was bittersweet. Y is, after all, the penultimate letter of the alphabet. This time Kinsey is
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Background: Genre Fiction Genre is a term applied to different kinds of literature that can be defined by their subject matter, form, or technique. According to A Handbook to Literature, 7th ed., by William Harmon & C. Hugh Holman (Prentice Hall, 1996): Genre classification implies that there are groups of formal or technical characteristics among
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Kubica, Mary. Every Last Lie Harlequin Audio, © 2017 (print edition also © 2017) I enjoyed Mary Kubica’s first three novels: The Good Girl (2014), Pretty Baby (2015), and Don’t You Cry (2016). Each features a twist at the end. But these twists aren’t simple plot tricks designed to shock or titillate readers. Rather, they
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Connelly, Michael. The Late Show Hachette Audio, © 2017 ISBN 978–1–619–69430–9 (print book © 2017) Recommended Michael Connelly is one of my favorite authors. His two series characters are LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch and criminal defense lawyer Mickey Haller, known as the Lincoln lawyer because he works primarily from the back seat of a
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In its most basic meaning, setting in fiction refers to the time and place in which the action of a novel or short story occurs. In some works the setting isn’t much more than a few simple references to time and place in order to ground the work in reality. In other instances setting takes
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