It’s New Year’s Eve, a good time to look back on what’s happened in the literary world this year. Here are two more “best books” lists I think I’ve missed, NPR’s choices of The Best Music Books of 2011 and 2011’s Best American Poetry. Britain’s The Telegraph provides comprehensive coverage in The Literary Year 2011. […]
2011: The Literary Year in Review Read More »
If your life is anything like mine, you’re swamped right about now with holiday preparations and festivities. This week’s installment of Monday Miscellany, therefore, will be mercifully short. An Introduction to Psych You Up. Literally. Maria Konnikova is a woman after my own heart. At Scientific American she has just introduced her new column, Literally
The Snowman by Jo Nesbø My rating: 3 of 5 stars Although I did find the story compelling, the beginning of this book really dragged for me. I imagine the slow, drawn-out opening might not be such a problem for Norwegian readers who have followed Harry Hole through the 6 previous novels, but coming in
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When novels change history As with so many concepts in literature, the French have an elegant word for it: uchronie. For Anglophone readers and writers, we have to make do with such unwieldy terms as “counterfactual novels”, “alternate timelines” and “allohistories” to describe these books. Uchronie is a neologism modelled on Utopia – a “no-time”
Books | Talking Book and Braille Library in Seattle is a volunteer wonder | Seattle Times Newspaper The Washington Talking Book and Braille Library serves more than 10,000 state residents and runs on the best efforts of 400 volunteers, providing recorded and Braille books for anyone with a disability that prevents them from reading books
The fiction of literary friendship Writing in the Guardian, Wayne Gooderham concludes: “Judging by the stories that have been written about it, writers do not make the best of friends.” 10 Most Reclusive Literary Geniuses in History The world’s greatest writers use their literary genius to illustrate and comment on the human condition. And yet,
It’s easy to talk about books that are either amazingly good or blatantly bad; we usually have no trouble articulating the points that we either love or loathe. But it’s often hard to find much of anything to say about a book that we think is just so-so, mediocre, ordinary—perhaps the nicest term is unremarkable.
Why is it so hard to review mediocre books? Read More »
Yep, it’s that time again already: Time for the “best books of the year” lists. Here’s the first one I’ve seen, Publishers Weekly‘s list of the 10 best books of the year, both fiction and nonfiction considered together. And I’m sure that more lists won’t be far behind.
PW Best Books 2011: The Top 10 Read More »
Why is dystopia so appealing to young adults? A dystopia is an imaginary world in which people live dehumanized lives of fear and subjugation; it’s the opposite of utopia. In this piece YA writer Moira Young examines why distopian novels such as Suzanne Collins’s recent Hunger Games trilogy are so popular with young people: Books
Book lovers rake in the reading as publishers release fall titles It’s time to trade in the beach reads for the usually longer and more serious fall reads. The Sacramento Bee‘s Allen Pierleoni lists upcoming new titles, some by big-name authors (think Joan Didion, Lee Child, Stephen King, Alice Hoffman, and Sue Grafton ) in
