Literary Criticism

Monday Miscellany

Weirdest Writer Deaths “Here are some of the most bizarre ways that writers have had their story end.” Rate This Article: What’s Wrong with the Culture of Critique The Internet-begotten abundance of absolutely everything has given rise to a parallel universe of stars, rankings, most-recommended lists, and other valuations designed to help us sort the […]

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A Slight Shift in Perspective

The “reframing” power of literature comes from the story’s not being exactly the same as the reader’s story. In fitting the two together, the reader has to shift his point of view and so moves out of what seemed like an immovable and rigid framework. In this way, reading breeds tolerance and sympathy for people

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Scout, Atticus & Boo

Scout, Atticus & Boo – CSMonitor.com: Yvonne Zipp, in Christian Science Monitor, reviews a new book issued to honor the fiftieth anniversary–July 11–of the publication of Harper Lee’s iconic novel To Kill a Mockingbird: “‘Scout, Atticus & Boo’ is a lovely celebration of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ And if, in the end, many of the

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The Psychology of Reading: A Select Bibliography

This list includes some of the books mentioned in a previous post as well as others about the psychology of reading. It is intended as a starting point rather than a definitive bibliography on the subject. Dehaene, Stanislas. Reading in the Brain: the Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. New York: Viking, 2009. Print.

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Fictive Worlds and Real Brains: The Psychology of Reading

If you’ve ever gotten lost in a good book, you know the feeling of being transported into a different reality: Awareness of your surroundings melts away, time seems to stop, and you immerse yourself completely in the world of the book. Like daydreaming, this feeling of being carried into another world is an alternate state

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A Novel? Padgett Powell’s Book Defies Genre

A Novel? Padgett Powell’s Book Defies Genre : NPR: The question mark that accompanies the subtitle of author Padgett Powell’s new book, The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? might seem flippant. But Powell’s book earns that bit of punctuation. The Interrogative Mood is composed entirely of questions. Some of them are laugh out loud funny, some

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Robert Jordan, Hemingway’s Bipartisan Hero : NPR

Robert Jordan, Hemingway’s Bipartisan Hero : NPR: Barack Obama and John McCain don’t agree on much, but they apparently agree on this: They’re fierce political opponents, but it turns out that the presidential candidates do agree on a literary matter: Each man picks Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls as a favorite.

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Remembrances of David Foster Wallace

The Scout Report, a fine weekly newsletter from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin, offers this roundup of stories about the recent death of author David Foster Wallace: Friends and colleagues remember author David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace, Influential Writer, Dies at 46 [Free registration may be required] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15wallace.html Wallace

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