Literary Criticism

On Novels and Novelists

On Novels and Novelists

Think “The Exorcist” Was Just a Horror Movie? The Author Says You’re Wrong. Here’s an outstanding piece of creative nonfiction about William Peter Blatty, author of the 1971 bestseller The Exorcist, made into a blockbuster movie that remains on most lists of quintessential horror movies. I remember hearing back when the book came out that […]

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woman reading

On Reading

She swoons to conquer Batya Ungar-Sargon, who has a Ph.D. in the eighteenth century novel, asks, “Readers of romance fiction enjoy tales of alpha males and forced seduction. Could they still be considered feminists?” In 2013, Americans spent $1.08 billion dollars on romance novels, which represented a whopping 13 per cent of the adult-fiction revenue

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On Novels and Novelists

On Novels and Novelists

10 Famous Authors’ Favorite TV Shows In an era when it’s impossible to open a web browser without stumbling across another “Is television the new novel?” piece, we couldn’t help but wonder, Carrie Bradshaw-style, just what our favorite writers watch in their spare time. See what shows the following authors like: Zadie Smith S.E. Hinton

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woman reading

On Reading

Everything Science Knows About Reading On Screens This article summarizes research into how we read differently on screens than in books. Of course not all screens are the same: A smartphone screen is much smaller than a laptop or desktop computer screen, a Kindle is different from an iPad. “But many researchers say that reading

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“Go Set a Watchman”: A Lesson in Writing & Reading Fiction

Related Posts: Review: “Go Set a Watchman” Compendium on “Go Set a Watchman” More on Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” Lee, Harper. Go Set a Watchman New York: HarperCollins, 2015 ISBN 978–0–06–240985–0 Consensus is that Go Set a Watchman is the manuscript that Harper Lee originally submitted to publisher J. B. Lippincott Company in

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woman reading

More on Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman”

Reactions to Harper Lee’s recently published aren’t going away any time soon. Here are some more that I’ve collected. Again, this list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, but here I’ve included only those pieces that add something new to the discussion rather than just echoing what has already been said. I offer very short summaries

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On Novels and Novelists

7 Book Franchises We Really Need To Say Goodbye To Claire Fallon writes in the Huffington Post: Let’s be honest: Too many series and franchises are reworked and rebooted until there’s simply no life left in them. As much as fans may clamor to spend more money on another Dune book, for example, they’re more

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On Novels and Novelists

On Novels and Novelists

Here’s Why Famous Authors Chose Their Fake Names For as long as there have been books, there have been authors disguising themselves behind pseudonyms. Some do it for political reasons, others for personal concerns, and some simply for the joy of mischief. In any case, pseudonyms are a tpower tool for writers, allowing their pens

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On Novels and Novelists

On Novels and Novelists

10 authors who excel on the internet If you love literature, here’s your chance to connect with some of the most technologically savvy writers: a few [writers] are using the etherland as a canvas for experimentation and play. They have moved their storytelling, wit and insight from page to pixel, winning fans and readers in

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

Psychological Text Analysis

Shakespeare’s Plays Reveal His Psychological Signature A hot trend in literary criticism is the use of computers to analyze text, a field known as digital humanities. Recently Ryan Boyd, a graduate researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, and James Pennebaker, the Liberal Arts Regents Centennial Professor of Psychology at the university, conducted one

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