I Read Only Books by Women For a Year: Here’s What Happened A constant topic of literary criticism (in both senses of criticism) is that the Western canon is populated by an over-abundance of dead White guys and that we don’t read or even hear about enough authors from the margins of society (e.g., women, […]
Face it, book snobs, crime fiction is real literature – and Ian Rankin proves it On the occasion of Ian Rankin’s becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Allan Massie discusses the author of the John Rebus novels and crime fiction in general. Massie bets that having been “received into Scotland’s intellectual elite
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We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order to Live is the first and only documentary being made about Joan Didion. While her writing is fierce and exposed, Joan herself is an incredibly private person. We have the privilege to know Joan as a subject and also as a member of our family. Our director, Griffin Dunne,
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Gothic literature features characteristics such as magic, mystery, chivalry, horror, clanking chains, ghosts, and dark castles to create a spooky atmosphere rife with foreboding and possibility. Over time Gothic emphasis changed from reliance on these external trappings for their own sake to a focus on the inner workings of the human psyche that the Gothic
Gothic Elements in Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” Read More »
Lev Grossman: My depression helped inspire the Magicians trilogy – Salon.com. I think literary critics — of whom you’re one and I’m another — are much better at describing beauty on the sentence level than we are at talking about the grace of a narrative twist or wonderful pacing or the thrilling tension that a
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Harry Potter and the Battle Against Bigotry Sure, Harry Potter destroyed the evil Lord Voldemort. But, aside from making lots of money for book publishers and film studio/theme-park conglomerates, what has the wizard done for us lately? In fact, he has been helping to reduce prejudice. That’s the conclusion of research just published in the
Anthony Burgess on James Joyce: the lost introduction Written in 1986 as the introduction to a Dolmen Press edition of ‘Dubliners’ illustrated by Louis le Brocquy, but never used, this brilliant essay, recently found among the papers of the author, who died in 1993, appears here for the first time Happy Bloomsday! (June 16, the
When the Water’s Too Cold, Something Else to Dive Into: A Critic’s Survey of Summer Books As for this summer’s brand-new reading, if there’s one overriding motif, it’s this: the crazier, the better. Here’s a whole long list of recommended summer reading. Norman Mailer’s A Fire on the Moon: a giant leap for reportage On the
Hunt on to find Cervantes — Spain’s great writer Miguel de Cervantes, Spain’s greatest writer, was a soldier of little fortune. He died broke in Madrid, his body riddled with bullets. His burial place was a tiny convent church no larger than the entrance hall of an average house. No more was heard of the
The World Within: Fiction Illuminating Neuroses of Our Time Edited by Mary Louise Aswell Notes and Introduction by Frederic Wertham, M.D. New York: Whittlesey House, 1947 The World Within was one of the first literary collections assembled to spotlight a psychological approach to literature. It couples a literary editor’s introductory remarks with analysis
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