Author News Last week I happily came across news related to two of my favorite mystery writers: Post-40 Bloomers: You’ve Come a Long Way, Lady James: about British author P.D. James Laura Lippman: By the Book Why Novel Reading Reduces Anxiety Good stories, then, not only help us relate to the hero’s journey, as Joseph […]
I’ll be traveling for the next three weeks. Therefore, updates here will be sparse. The 9 Best Books That Don’t Exist From Publishers Weekly: It’s time to make you really sad: here are 9 great books…that don’t actually exist. But while the world would certainly be a better place if they did exist (except #4
Robert McCloskey Sketches for “Make Way for Ducklings” Born in 1914 in Hamilton, Ohio, Robert McCloskey came to Boston to attend the now-defunct Vesper George Art School. He left to live in New York for a time and established a career as an author and illustrator in the late 1930s. Over the years, he became
Meet Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature The big literary news of last week was the announcement of Canadian writer Alice Munro as recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Munro is generally considered to be the current master of the short-fiction form. The announcement generated a lot of articles about Munro’s
Monday Miscellany: Big Literary News Edition Read More »
Why GR’s new review rules are censorship – Some thoughts Late Friday (US time) Goodreads announced a change in review and shelving policy, and immediately started deleting readers’ reviews and shelves. In doing this they became censors. Limiting readers’ ability to discuss the cultural context of a book is censorship designed to promote authors’ interests.
Two Items on J. D. Salinger Two recent news items about J. D. Salinger, reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye: New biography of JD Salinger to be published this September An attempt to piece together the life of the notoriously reclusive Catcher in the Rye author JD Salinger, researched over the course of eight
There are a couple of sad stories about well known authors to report: Elmore Leonard, 87, has suffered a stroke Harper Lee, 87, is the victim of elder abuse But there is some good news about libraries and librarians: State of America’s Libraries Report 2013 Libraries and library staff continue to respond to the needs
Actors Today Don’t Just Read for the Part. Reading IS the Part. The digital revolution has contributed to the dramatic rise in audiobooks: Once a small backwater of the publishing industry, in part because of the cumbersome nature of tapes, audiobooks are now flourishing. Sales have been rising by double digits annually in recent years.
This past week was particularly rich in literary-related stories. Here’s a selection chosen for its variety. Elizabeth Wein’s top 10 dynamic duos in fiction Some characters just have to exist in pairs: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Thing 1 and Thing 2. Elizabeth Wein’s excellent novel Code Name Verity
Learning to learn: the heart of reading Ally of Scoop.it (the curation service that I use for Literature & Psychology) describes how she went about learning to read for deep meaning. She based her strategy on an article by Maryanne Wolf, the John DiBiaggio Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts, and
