I picked this book up because I interpreted the description to mean I’d get a refresher course in the kind of slow, close reading we spent our time on in grad school. Clark’s stated purpose is to help writers “learn their best moves” by observing how literary writers have used language to produce “the effects …
Learning How to Read Slowly Laura Sackton, a self-proclaimed fast reader, explains her reasons for learning “about how to shift some of my bookish energy toward slower, more deliberate reading” because, she writes, “there are some books that are better when read slowly.” I couldn’t agree more. And I was especially intrigued by her realization …
Happy New Year! Welcome to the first blog post of the year! NaJoWriMo Journal Writing Challenge Starts January 1st I know a lot of book bloggers are also writers. Many participate in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, every November. Since I don’t write fiction, I’ve always been a little jealous. But, if you write in …
We Need Diverse Books Launches #BooksSaveLives Initiative Against Censorship We Need Diverse Books, an organization formed in 2014 “to advocate for diversity and inclusion in the publishing industry,” has launched its #BooksSaveLives initiative with “as much as $10,000 in grants to schools and libraries in underserved communities so they can purchase challenged and banned books …
How to Remember What You Read First of all, back in my pre-internet life I taught advanced composition at the college level, a course that included topics such as critical thinking and vetting research sources. That approach to information has become exponentially more important now, so it’s the first thing I do whenever I discover …
How the Clique Books Taught Me to Hate Other Girls and Myself “I thought these middle-grade novels would help me navigate private school. Instead, they immersed me in bullying and materialism.” Anyone who doesn’t believe how much literature can influence people could benefit from reading Lena Wilson’s account of how she was influenced by “the …
The Sound of My Inbox “The financial promise of email newsletters has launched countless micropublications — and created a new literary genre.” I admit that I receive a number of these newsletters every day, although I stick to the free versions. But many of them also offer a paid version that promises to be even …
Mixing Genres Is All About Messing with Structure “Knowing what people are expecting allows you to subvert the trope. Expectation is its own red herring, built right into your reader.” Stuart Turton, author of the brilliant The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and newly released The Devil and The Dark Water, admits, “I’m obsessed by …
Is ‘devouring’ books a sign of superficiality in a reader? Louise Adams discusses the history of the metaphor of eating as applied to reading. While the historical applications of the metaphor are informative, I’d like to focus on this point: This metaphor, however, hasn’t always seemed so benign. Two hundred years ago, describing someone as …
When I posted about The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, I wondered how many people actually engage with the text of mysteries or thrillers instead of just skimming to find out how the story ends. Michaelides leads the reader along so scintillatingly that a large part of the pleasure of reading this novel lies in …
Close Reading: A Pivotal Scene in “The Silent Patient” Read More »
