French serial-killer expert admits serial lies, including murder of imaginary wife Another author debunked: “Stéphane Bourgoin, whose books about murderers have sold millions, says he invented much of his experience, including training with FBI.” 85 years ago, FDR saved American writers. Could it ever happen again? David Kipen writes in the Los Angeles Times that […]
The Economics of Coronavirus: A Reading List I’ve been thinking a lot about what the world will look like once the COVID-19 pandemic is over, but my speculations are mostly social and political. I know absolutely nothing about economics beyond balancing my checkbook, which is why I took particular notice of this article from Five
On Friday afternoon, Governor Jay Inslee announced an extension of his stay-at-home order through May 31 for residents of Washington State, USA. I totally agree with this decision. I’d rather continue self-isolating now than have to start all over again by opening everything up too soon and letting the virus overwhelm us again. I do
The Case for Teaching Depressing Books High school English teacher Sahar Mustafah writes that her students often ask when they’re going to read happy books. Young people, quite naturally, equate “happy” with a safe, uneventful existence. Genocide, sexual assault, poverty, racism, climate change—it’s hard to find any reason to be excited about reading these subjects
I hope that you are all staying healthy and finding solace in activities that comfort you. Book sales surge as self-isolating readers stock up on ‘bucket list’ novels From the U.K. comes news that “Book sales have leapt across the country as readers find they have extra time on their hands, with bookshops reporting a
Penguin Classics and Others Work to Diversify Offerings From the Canon “Across the industry, publishers are releasing titles by authors who were previously marginalized or entirely lost to history.” The critical and commercial success of these titles is a result of a combination of factors: initiative on the part of writers’ families or estates; changing
The Curious Creation of Anna Kavan Although I’ve heard of Anna Kavan—mostly through occasional references to her works—I know nothing about her. But I’ll have to change that, after reading this profile in the New Yorker. She examined the nature of identity, both in her writing and in her personal life. Not long after being
I’m Not Feeling Good at All “The perplexingly alienated women of recent American fiction” Jess Bergman writes, “the new heroines of contemporary fiction possess a kind of anhedonic equanimity, more numb than overwhelmed.” Doing No Harm: A Look at Writing Suicide and Self-Harm in Fiction Alice Nuttall makes the case that “Suicide and self-harm are
“What Do I Know To Be True?”: Emma Copley Eisenberg on Truth in Nonfiction, Writing Trauma, and The Dead Girl Newsroom Jacqueline Alnes talks with Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of true-crime book The Third Rainbow Girl, “about what it means to seek truth in nonfiction, and how writing the personal can allow for more complicated
My mistress Melancholy Mary Ann Lund, associate professor in Renaissance English literature at the University of Leicester in the UK, discusses Robert Burton (1577-1640) and his The Anatomy of Melancholy, “the most pervasive and elusive of Renaissance diseases.” “One of the great achievements of The Anatomy of Melancholy is to draw together the collective wisdom
