Last Week’s Links

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

Betty Smith enchanted a generation of readers with ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ − even as she groused that she hoped Williamsburg would be flattened Rachel Gordan, assistant professor of religion and Jewish studies at the University of Florida, discloses that Betty Smith herself had a different experience of life in Brooklyn than does the […]

Literary Links Read More »

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

‘God forbid that a dog should die’: when Goodreads reviews go bad “I’m a professional critic, and an author of a literary novel. I’m a snob. I care about my book, and the authors I feel are my competitors,” writes Lauren Oyler. In this piece, another chapter in the continuous Goodreads controversy, she states that

Literary Links Read More »

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

The Third Person: Writing in the Aftermath of a Home Robbery “Kate Sidley Wrote About Tidy Mysteries in a Faraway Country. Then Real Violence Came Into Her Home.” A couple of weeks ago, Literary Links included Fictionalizing Real Trauma as a Means of Healing. In this article, Kate Sidley, author of cozy mysteries set in

Literary Links Read More »

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

Too Enjoyable to Be Literature What a wonderful short piece! It’s only four paragraphs long (one of which is a block quotation), but it so aptly expresses a reader’s joy of recognizing and appreciating a literary work.  That literary work is Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And Helen Garner has the same

Literary Links Read More »

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

You May Be Surprised by What Scares You “Fear may be a linchpin of horror, but as a recent anthology attests, the true bedrock of the genre is mood.” Stephen Kearse writes, “even in my favorite works of the genre, horror scenarios generally intrigue rather than scare me; I’m more likely to ponder than to

Literary Links Read More »

A stack of 3 closed books, next to an open notebook on which rests a ballpoint pen. Text: Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature

Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature

It’s Time to Rewrite the Rules of Historical Fiction “Research has long been a backbone of the genre. But beyond the textbooks, there’s a whole world of family stories that have not yet become history. They deserve their place in fiction, too.” Vanessa Chan, author of the well-received recent novel The Storm We Made, writes,

Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature Read More »

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

Shane’s Lot: How a 1949 Gun-Toting Loner Still Rides Through American Literature Writer Maria Hummel examines how Shane, the gunslinger introduced in Jack Schaefer’s 1949 novel Rider from Nowhere, has lived on in American popular culture. Although Shane’s worldview is dated, the novel projects the timeless quest of innocence in our bloody world. Shane altered

Literary Links Read More »

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

Mychal Threets Wants Everyone to Experience ‘Library Joy’ “The 33-year-old librarian from California has become popular on TikTok and Instagram with his upbeat take on libraries.” When a librarian friend of mine recently mentioned Mychal Threets on Facebook, I had no idea who he is or why she was waxing enthusiastic about him. Now I

Literary Links Read More »

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

Introducing the 2024 Reading Log! I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read since May 1, 1991, when we got our first computer. I started with a database program, but, over that many years, software has changed multiple times. Every time a program would bite the dust, I’d export my data, then import it

Literary Links Read More »

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

How Women Writers Speculated Fictional Futures Free From Patriarchal Control “Lisa Yaszek on the Feminist History of Science Fiction” Since I started exploring Life Stories in Literature in the last few years, I’ve read more science fiction than I had read in my entire life before. Indeed, science fiction the ability to explore other possible

Literary Links Read More »

Scroll to Top