Quantcast

Posts Tagged: nonfiction

The Untidy World

By

“In truth, memory’s great betrayal, that it will not lie intact in wait for us, is lament enough to revisit in every generation. This is what I go to nonfiction for, the way we pick at the scab, poke our finger in the wound of memory’s fickle and existential transience, and the inconvenience of our desire to make things whole and right.”

At Brevity, Liz Stephens reflects on fact and nonfiction, articulating her loss of trust in John D’Agata’s narrative nonfiction, which she examines by way of a contrast to David Shields’ Reality Hunger, and none other than Cheryl Strayed’s “The Love of My Life.”

...more

Care to comment?

On Why We Need Some Critics Like Bolaño

By

Roberto Bolaño’s Between Parentheses puts the author’s critical and nonfiction prowess on display. It’s a collection of essays and writing from his newspaper column (which was titled Between Parentheses), compiled after the publication of The Savage Detectives. Most of the pieces revolve around the topics of poetry and fiction.

...more

Care to comment?

Here Я Some Essays I Like

By

Every so often, I post links to a bunch of very short essays that only take a second to read but that made my day better. Hopefully, they’ll make your’s better too.

“Last night, I had a little power at my house as the darkness settled over us all.  I sent out pulses into space.  My students, scattered by the storm, still clutched that rapidly diminishing charge in their hands.  Their phones retained some spark.  They echoed back.” At Brevity, “Some Space” by Michael Martone (part of a special edition about the tornado in Tuscaloosa).

...more

Care to comment?

Jim Shepard on Writing Fiction That’s Got Some Truth to It

By

“The first worry writers have when they consider working with something like historical events has to do with the issue of authority:  as in, where do I get off writing about that?    Well, here’s the good and the bad news:  where do you get off writing about anything?   Where do you get off writing about someone of a different gender?    A different person?   Where do you get off writing about yourself, from twenty years ago?

...more

Care to comment?

Glenn Beck is the New John Updike

By

“For the past nine months, ever since a certain somebody seized the White House, conservative pundits have dominated the ranks of nonfiction. …

It would be easy enough, and rather predictable, to lament this state of affairs and to find in it evidence of an anemic literary culture, a dangerously aggrieved minority, or at the very least the diabolical efficacy of bulk sales.

...more

Care to comment?