My Apologies After the migration to a new computer, I now find myself unable to reply to comments on my own blog. This pertains to all posts over the last couple of weeks. Please know that I do appreciate your comments and read every one of them. I won’t be able to start trying to […]
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Who’s Really Writing Celebrity Novels? “The writers and agents working behind the scenes tell us how it actually works.” “. . . what does it mean when a celebrity decides to write fiction?” Sophie Vershbow interviewed some “ writers and agents working behind the scenes on similar books [to] tell us how it actually works.”
‘Each bears his own ghosts’: How the classics speak to these days of fear, anger and presidential candidates stalking the land You thought Spooky Season ended at midnight on October 31? Here in the U.S., Rachel Hadas, professor of English at Rutgers University, writes, “A week before the election, everyone seems to be afraid.” “Our
To read or not to read: Does COVID-19 belong in our books? Logan Brown, an arts writer for The Michigan Daily, writes the “ability to escape into another world is an essential requirement for me to like a book — when I am reminded of my own reality that escape is often broken.” She then
Books Aren’t Mental Movies: You’re Missing the Best Part of Reading BookRiot writer Danika Ellis caught my attention with this opening paragraph: Sometimes, when people describe what they love about reading, it feels like we’re doing two very different activities. They talk about a movie playing out in their mind’s eye as they read, imagined
Seven Books That Demystify Human Behavior I firmly believe that reading fiction teaches us a lot about being human. Here freelance writer Chelsea Leu suggests books, both fiction and nonfiction, that can increase our understanding of people. Make it awkward! “Rather than being a cringey personal failing, awkwardness is a collective rupture – and a
When Emily Dickinson Mailed It In “The supposed recluse constantly sent letters to friends, family, and lovers. What do they show us?” Kamran Javadizadeh looks at The Letters of Emily Dickinson, “a new, definitive edition that collects, reorders, and freshly annotates every surviving letter that Dickinson sent (or drafted) to someone else, along with the
Neuromancer: the birth of an SF classic “Author William Gibson and his editor, Malcolm Edwards, recall how a seminal SF work came to publication” Neuromancer came out just as I was seriously making the transition from academic reading to popular reading. I’d read almost no science fiction at the time and was curious to try
15 Great Psychological Thriller Books To Bend Your Mind Apparently even business-oriented folks like to read novels, especially psychological thrillers. In this article for Forbes, Sughnen Yongo writes that a “good psychological thriller book earns readers’ respect by capturing their attention with high-stakes conflict, unforgettable tension and unpredictable twists,” then offers a list of “15
How Two Rebel Physicists Changed Quantum Theory Quantum physics has permeated popular culture to the extent that we often see some of its complex concepts used as metaphors to explain life (e.g., the concept of parallel universes in science fiction novels like Dark Matter [2016] and the title of Ellen Gilchrist’s 1989 story collection, Light
