Nothing Is More Real Than Fiction Over on BookRiot Greg Zimmerman praises the power of ficiton: I get really angry when someone says they don’t read fiction because it’s all made up and “not real.” Bullshit! Nothing is more real than fiction. Nothing helps us make sense of the real world more than fiction. Nothing […]
The Heroine in the Drawing Room Cynthia Crossen, books columnist for the Wall Street Journal, contemplates the meaning of the phrase domestic fiction, a genre often sneered at: Domestic fiction, like all literary genres, can be bad, and bad in an especially cloying, attenuated and dreary way. I call bad domestic novels Hallmark fiction, and
Forgotten Chapters of Boston’s Literary History People may know about Longfellow and Poe, but do they know about the ongoing literary feud between these two sons of New England? They will after perusing this marvelous digital exhibit from the Boston Public Library and the Massachusetts Historical Society, which explores some of the “forgotten chapters” of
Featured Review: The Black Echo In honor of Michael Connelly’s birthday, here’s a review of The Black Echo, that book that introduces Connelly’s franchise series character LAPD detective Harry Bosch.
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The Best Stephen King Book: Readers’ Picks Readers have spoken. The Stand won in a landslide as Stephen King’s most popular novel. If your King favorite is something else, check the pie chart here to see how it stacked up. New & Forthcoming: The Algonquin Reader Download Algonquin Books’ big list of books due out
16 Fiction Book Characters’ Myers-Briggs Personality Types The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a psychological categorization tool based on the theories of Carl Jung. If you don’t know your type, this page includes links for finding out more about how this assessment works and what the results mean. I’m an INFP myself, a group that includes
McDermid, Val. Beneath the Bleeding (2007) Audiobook by Recorded Books (2010), narrated by Gerard Doyle This book opens with Dr. Tony Hill in his office late one night at the psychiatric facility where he works. When one of the most violent patients stages an escape, Hill manages to distract him long enough to allow
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I finally got around to watching the film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012), based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel of the same title. Our book group read the novel several years ago and loved it, so I’ve been looking forward to seeing the film adaptation. The story involves 10-year-old Oskar Schell, whose father died
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McDermid, Val. The Mermaids Singing (1995) Audiobook by Dreamscape Media (2011), narrated by Graham Roberts Note: This novel contains graphic descriptions of torture and sexual violence. The bodies of four men, brutally tortured and murdered, have been found in the fictional town of Bradfield, England. Police have no leads in the case and have
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Here’s what caught my eye over the past week: ‘I Am The Cheese’: A Nightmarish Nail-Biter: The most chilling book I’ve ever read is Robert Cormier’s I Am the Cheese. In this piece, which is almost as compelling as the novel itself, author Ben Marcus remembers how reading the book affected him as a 12-year-old
