Here’s a short entry for this busy holiday week. In Fiction, It Was the Year of the Woman An interesting look at the bulk of novels published this year: They didn’t launch any franchises — no “girl”-titled blockbusters and probably no future Jennifer Lawrence vehicles — but collectively, they dominated a shrunken literary ecosystem. Each […]
The Best Books of 2018 Amazon got us started off back in early November with its many best books lists. This page is the portal on which you’ll find links to lists of best books in many different categories. Best Books of 2018 This is The Washington Post ’s portal into its lists of books
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Since reading and writing about books is my primary activity, I’ve recently been reading some articles on reading and writing about books (1) 38 Years on Books: The Essential Michiko Kakutani Reader One of the biggest recent events among book people was the retirement of Michiko Kakutani, who had been the chief book critic of
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As Far As Your Brain Is Concerned, Audiobooks Are Not ‘Cheating’ I love audiobooks; they enable me to read while plodding along on the treadmill or doing chores around the house. I’ve always thought that listening to a book instead of reading it is not cheating as long as I listen to the unabridged version.
Writing Tips: James Lee Burke Usually I would put writing tips from a big-time author under the heading “on writing” rather than “on novels and novelists.” But I’m including these tips from one of my favorite mystery writers, James Lee Burke, here because he has written them out as an essay rather than a list
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Thanks to a recent WordPress Daily Prompt for today’s post: Give some love to three blog posts you’ve read and loved in the past week, and tell us why they’re worth reading. (1) SAGA SATURDAY I This post was my introduction to AbbieLu’s site Cafe Book Bean. In this post she defines what a saga
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If you enjoyed a good book and you’re a woman, the critics think you’re wrong Jennifer Weiner never passes up an opportunity to lament how the world of literary criticism mistreats authors (like her) and readers of popular literature. “Every once in a while,” she explains, “a literary novel becomes tremendously popular, transcending the typical
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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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
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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