In Memoriam: Literary Folks We Lost in 2017

This is always my least favorite post of the year. Here’s a list of people the literary world lost in 2017, including, where available, a link to an obituary and the date of death. John Berger, 1/2 Nat Hentoff, 1/7 Clare Hollingworth, 1/10 William Peter Blatty, 1/12 William A. Hilliard, 1/16 Peter Abrahams, 1/18 Byron […]

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Some Best Books Lists for 2017

Announcing the Winners of the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards The Best Books of 2017 From Amazon The Best Books of 2017 From Esquire. © 2017 by Mary Daniels Brown

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The Recipients of the 2017 National Book Awards in All Four Categories

The winners of the 2017 National Book Awards in all four categories, as well as the presenters and the lifetime achievement award. Source: The Recipients of the 2017 National Book Awards in All Four Categories

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Seven Finalists for 2017 BookLife Prize Announced

Seven books—six novels and a memoir—were named finalists for the 2017 BookLife Prize. Each book was selected by an award-winning or bestselling author who served as a guest judge in one of seven genres. Source: Seven Finalists for 2017 BookLife Prize Announced

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Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to British author Kazuo Ishiguro – UPI.com

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My Top 5 Novels of All Time

Every December 31st I sit down with the list of books I read that year and choose the best ones. I usually end up with 10 bests plus 5 honorable mentions. I include this many because I’m fortunate enough to be in the time of life when I can choose to read whatever I want,

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Review: “Y Is for Yesterday”

Grafton, Sue. Y is for Yesterday Random House Audio, © 2017 (print edition also © 2017) Recommended I’m always eager to read the newest installment of Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series. However, this time my pleasure in digging into it was bittersweet. Y is, after all, the penultimate letter of the alphabet. This time Kinsey is

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What I’ve Been Reading on Writing About Literature

Since reading and writing about books is my primary activity, I’ve recently been reading some articles on reading and writing about books (1) 38 Years on Books: The Essential Michiko Kakutani Reader One of the biggest recent events among book people was the retirement of Michiko Kakutani, who had been the chief book critic of

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The 2017 National Book Award Longlists

Source: The 2017 National Book Award Longlists This list from Publishers Weekly includes links to its reviews of many of the nominated works.

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Review: “The Blinds”

Background: Genre Fiction Genre is a term applied to different kinds of literature that can be defined by their subject matter, form, or technique. According to A Handbook to Literature, 7th ed., by William Harmon & C. Hugh Holman (Prentice Hall, 1996): Genre classification implies that there are groups of formal or technical characteristics among

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