Posts by author
Ian MacAllen
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Geoff Dyer Attends Geoff Dyer Conference
Birkbeck, University of London hosted the first international conference on the acclaimed British author Geoff Dyer. In attendance: Geoff Dyer. Aside from the rather British problem of sorting out how to refer to the author—”Dyer” would be used to refer…
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Notable NYC: 8/2–8/8
Saturday 8/2: Najee Omar, Joseph Riipi, Lauren Gordon, and more read at the Boog City Small, Small Press Fair. Unnameable Books (PDF), 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., $5 suggested. Sunday 8/3: Elizabeth Little reads Dear Daughter, a novel about a…
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Little Free Libraries of St. Paul
Star Tribune Books Editor Laurie Hertzel began noticing the Little Free Libraries around her Twin Cities neighborhood. Little Free Libraries are compact, self-service stations where readers can share books (earlier this summer, a 9-year-old in Kansas operated a similar Little…
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The Era of Celebrity Bookselling
The Colbert Bump helped propel Edan Lepucki‘s California to the third spot on the New York Times bestseller list. Lena Dunham’s endorsement helped sell Adelle Waldman‘s The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. Celebrity and celebrity endorsements have long played a role…
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Archiving in the Digital Age
Salman Rushdie donated his personal archive to Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL) in 2006. Much of Rushdie’s personal archive was digital, a form that creates new problems for modern librarians to contend with. Consider, for example,…
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Getting Personal for Better Narratives
Personal narratives offer writers an important source of inspiration for their writing. Writers edit out the dull portions of their lives to create a version that is both interesting and representative of a kind of universal experience. Kim Triedman writes…
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Honest Reviews, Better Literature
Good literature demands strong criticism, but today’s culture of niceness has limited critics. Lee Klein, writing in 3:AM Magazine, points out that writers’ interest in receiving positive feedback often leads them to forgo standards and slant reviews positively: Literary citizenship…
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Disappearing Act
Invisibility has a long literary history, from science fiction, like in H.G. Wells’s Invisible Man, to fantasy, like in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Often, the difference is between methodology and motive. Wells focused on scientific accuracy to illustrate “the…
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Notable NYC: 7/26–8/1
Saturday 7/26: Fourth Annual New York City Poetry Festival. Governor’s Island, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., free. Sunday 7/27: Diana Hamilton, Leopoldine Core, R. Erica Dolye, Betsy Fagin, Brenda Lijima, and Krystal Languell join the Poets in the Garden series.…
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Ray Rice and Domestic Abuse: A Rumpus Roundup
In February, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocked out his fiancée at Atlantic City’s Revel Casino. He was caught dragging her limp body out of the elevator. They later married. Domestic violence is so common in the United States—every…
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Amazon Conflict Decreasing Sales
A new survey of book buyers shows that some customers are buying fewer books from Amazon as a result with the ongoing conflict with Hachette. The Bookseller reports that though only 61% of respondents knew of the dispute, 19% of…
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Goodnight Structure, Goodnight Narrative Form
The classic children’s book Goodnight Moon is a model example of successful narrative structure, argues Aimee Bender in the New York Times. The story follows enough traditional patterns to be satisfying, but also deviates in new and unique ways: “Goodnight…