Literary History

‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ turns 50

‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ turns 50: The Reading Life – latimes.com Ken Kesey’s novel ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ which became an Oscar-winning film starring Jack Nicholson, turns 50. Does it stand up to time? That’s the question Carolyn Kellogg of the Los Angeles Times asked herself, then read the novel for […]

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Monday Miscellany

Finally, Out with the Old Year. . . In what I promise will be the last list of “best books of 2011” reported here, Washington Post book critic Ron Charles summarizes his favorite novels of 2011 in the following categories: most devastating best Western weirdest sex best seafaring tale most metaphysical best novel about novels

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2011: The Literary Year in Review

It’s New Year’s Eve, a good time to look back on what’s happened in the literary world this year. Here are two more “best books” lists I think I’ve missed, NPR’s choices of The Best Music Books of 2011 and 2011’s Best American Poetry. Britain’s The Telegraph provides comprehensive coverage in The Literary Year 2011.

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Monday Miscellany

How the literary female detective has changed In The Christian Science Monitor Randy Dotinga says of Scottish mystery writer Denise Mina: [she] has become one of the finest mystery writers of the 21st century. Her deeply perceptive grasp on the inner lives of crooks, cops, journalists, and their families has allowed her books to transcend

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Visitors make special literary find at bookstore in downtown Houston, MO

Visitors make special literary find at bookstore in downtown Houston – houstonherald.com | Houston Herald – Houston, MO: News. When they came to Houston for the first time a few weeks ago, a Columbia couple didn’t expect to go home with a prized addition to their collection of books by a famous 20th century Canadian

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Monday Miscellany

When novels change history As with so many concepts in literature, the French have an elegant word for it: uchronie. For Anglophone readers and writers, we have to make do with such unwieldy terms as “counterfactual novels”, “alternate timelines” and “allohistories” to describe these books. Uchronie is a neologism modelled on Utopia – a “no-time”

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Monday Miscellany

Book lovers rake in the reading as publishers release fall titles It’s time to trade in the beach reads for the usually longer and more serious fall reads. The Sacramento Bee‘s Allen Pierleoni lists upcoming new titles, some by big-name authors (think Joan Didion, Lee Child, Stephen King, Alice Hoffman, and Sue Grafton ) in

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Monday Miscellany

Nine seems to be this week’s lucky number. Nine Pilgrimages For the Lover of Western Literature A pilgrimage is the focal point around which a journey wraps, not the raison d’etre per se (that is the journey itself) but rather the pulley on the far end of the rope that ratchets you out of your

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Monday Miscellany

This post introduces a new feature, Monday Miscellany, a conglomeration of intriguing literary items that have found their way to my monitor. Remembering Stieg Larsson In The New York Times, David Carr reviews ‘There Are Things I Want You to Know’ About Stieg Larsson and Me, by Eva Gabrielsson. Gabrielsson is the woman who lived

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