Lev Grossman: My depression helped inspire the Magicians trilogy – Salon.com. I think literary critics — of whom you’re one and I’m another — are much better at describing beauty on the sentence level than we are at talking about the grace of a narrative twist or wonderful pacing or the thrilling tension that a […]
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Related Post: Introduction to Life Stories Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel by S. J. Watson HarperCollins, 2011 Kindle Edition A woman awakens, wonders where she is, rolls over—and is shocked to see a middle-aged man wearing a wedding ring and with hairs on his back sleeping next to her. She stumbles
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The Feud Between Amazon, Hachette Publishing, and Readers Heats Up It’s difficult to keep up with all the nuances of this issue. Here are a couple of recent articles: Dispute Between Amazon and Hachette Takes an Orwellian Turn Maybe Amazon really is rattled by the whole Authors United phenomenon organized by Douglas Preston. The writers
Harry Potter and the Battle Against Bigotry Sure, Harry Potter destroyed the evil Lord Voldemort. But, aside from making lots of money for book publishers and film studio/theme-park conglomerates, what has the wizard done for us lately? In fact, he has been helping to reduce prejudice. That’s the conclusion of research just published in the
“We live forwards but we understand backwards.” –Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Even though we may not be aware of it, we all carry within us a story about our lives that describes who we are. We’ve had experiences from which we’ve learned lessons, and from those experiences and lessons we’ve formulated a set
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Ranking Cormac McCarthy’s Greatest Books I’m a week behind with this, but I include it here because Cormac McCarthy is an author I haven’t yet worked on, and I’m glad to have the suggestions offered here: Trailing Philip Roth by a few months and Toni Morrison by two years, Cormac McCarthy (who turns 81 this
Although we tend to think of mysteries and thrillers together, there is a difference: In a mystery, the reader sees the clues and, near the end, discovers the culprit along with the fictional detective. In a thriller, the reader learns early on who the villain is and watches as the hero and the villain try
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The Decline of Harper Lee — Vulture. Yesterday’s Monday Miscellany included a summary of the publication of a new book about Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, and Lee’s denial of cooperation on the book. This article paints a sad picture indeed. Having outlived most of her family and friends, Harper Lee, 88,
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A New Book About To Kill a Mockingbird Author Harper Lee? Last week saw the announcement of a new book about Harper Lee, The Mockingbird Next Door by Chicago Tribune reporter Marja Mills. USA Today explains how Mills obtained material about the notoriously reclusive and publicity-shy Lee: Mills was able to penetrate Lee’s wariness by
King, Stephen. Mr. Mercedes New York: Scribner, 2014 448 pages ISBN–13: 978–1476754451 I don’t read a lot of Stephen King’s works because I don’t like horror. But I do love mysteries, so when I saw King’s latest book described as a “straight-up mystery,” I went for it. Technically, Mr. Mercedes is not a mystery—in
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