Posts by author
Sam Riley
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Historians Blog Too
“The point is that while we cherish open-ness or dialogue, we relish our closed structures and cordoned-off and privileged hallways. Academic blogging, to this graduate student, was a way out of this clubbiness.” Bookslut’s interview with historian Manan Ahmed praises…
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Teens, Malls, Petty Crime
John Brandon, author of Arkansas and Citrus County, reminisces about the petty crime/literary conquests of his adolescence at The Millions. After his teenage athleticism burned out, he funneled his energy into consuming and stealing books from the Gulf View Square…
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Preserving Books
The Internet Archive is now setting its sights on physical space, aiming to preserve one copy of every book, record and movie they obtain. As Google Books makes it increasingly easier to discount the importance of physical books (and the…
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Welcoming Profanity
Profanity can be somewhat polarizing, but why not appreciate all the incidentally humorous and intensified moments that come from the foul parts of language? This essay is an ode to a certain four-letter word and praises the use of the…
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French Faux Pas
A twenty year-old French law that sought to keep the news media from promoting commercial enterprises is being newly reinforced. This means that using “Facebook” and “Twitter” on air is strictly forbidden. This seems like a good way to stave…
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Eating Your “Cultural Vegetables”
Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott evaluate what is boring and why, in the context of film. They discuss the films that are deemed boring because they don’t distract enough from the passing of time and the ones that incite a…
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YA Fiction Feud
This weekend twitter hosted a feud on the subject of young adult fiction, spurred by Meghan Cox Gurdon’s article in the Wall Street Journal, detailing the perils of contemporary young adult fiction. According to Gurdon, young adult fiction “can be…
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Lying Artists
Artists and certain brain damage patients have overlapping tendencies—lying or “chronic confabulation,” in neuroscience vernacular. The difference is in that writers fabricate experiences and consciously control their associations whereas people who have incurred frontal lobe damage may be unable to…
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Franzian Guidance
Jonathan Franzen dispensed some optimistic guidance in a NY Times Op-Ed essay, an adaptation of his recent commencement speech to Kenyon graduates. He covers techno-consumerism, the environmentalist anger that once confined him to his room and his bird-watching revelation that…
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Swearing Firsts in the New Yorker
The New Yorker’s history of expletive usage and pioneering is recounted by the Awl in list-form. Times have changed, along with the editors at the New Yorker and this in turn, has changed how often profanity appears in the magazine.…
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Women in Sci Fi
The Guardian researches why the female presence seems to be diminishing in science fiction writing. Though there isn’t necessarily a shortage of female authors (or women publishers), there is a serious lack of female presence in the Guardian’s list of…
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Book Covers, Gender-Switching
German artist, Daniela Comani, changes the gender on the covers of classic literary works in her current exhibition in an L.A. gallery. Thus The Brothers Karamazov becomes The Sisters Karamazov, and Mrs. Dalloway becomes Mr. Dalloway, etc. The utility of…