THE BLURB #21: This Is Your Brain—on Books, on Screens
After just five hundred years of movable type and the Enlightenment it begat, we are blinded by how brief our dwelling in the kingdom of print turned out to be.
...moreThe Blurb
The Blurb #20: Joy Is a Job
I, too, want to feel a buzz, but I have no illusions. It takes effort. Reading good books requires discipline.
...moreTHE BLURB #19: The Complete Thing
“As those early days blurred into weeks, I watched my newborn son losing weight. How could it be that we did not know how to feed our son? Where was our midwife now? Why, in the middle of this enormous city, were we so isolated? We needed help. We were doomed. We’d always been doomed.”
...moreTHE BLURB #18: The Long Haul
Though I have doubted my talent, I’ve never doubted my conviction that this was the path I had to be on. Writing is like my Siamese twin: freakish, alive, weighty, uncanny. Were we to be separated, I doubt that I could survive it.
...moreTHE BLURB #17: The Poet Never Affirmeth
Are there rules that govern the representation of the “real world” in fiction? How much should fiction writers be allowed to misrepresent history before being called out for it?
...moreTHE BLURB #16: Hungrier, More Successful, a Bit Ruthless
A review of David Goodwillie’s American Subversive that veers off into some really important and complicated and basically unanswerable questions about literature, literary reviews, overstimulation, secret weapons, and 21st century life.
...moreTHE BLURB #15: The Monster Impulse
The panic that pervades these stories arises because in our real, human world there is too much cause for fear and worry. Who, exactly, is responsible for the deteriorating environment? What, precisely, causes terrorism? Enter the bugbears and scapegoats.
...moreThe Blurb #14: The Land of Underwater Birds
What makes a good title? The Great Gatsby is one for the ages—but it wasn’t Fitzgerald’s idea. He wanted to call his novel Trimalchio in West Egg, which sounds like something Dr. Seuss dreamed up for The Playboy Channel.
...moreTHE BLURB #13: The Anxiety of Influence
Instead of writing this book review, I’ve been pacing around my apartment and slugging absurd quantities of coffee and snarling to myself about slinging postmodern bullshit all over the page.
...moreThe Blurb #12: On Disturbance
The deciders of the Publishers Weekly Best 10 list “ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz.” Which is kind of brilliant in a way. Because everyone knows if you ignore things, you can maybe make those things go away.
...moreThe Blurb #11: A Fresh Eye
Why do so many of us, as readers or maybe as a society, assume that originality springs forth out of nothing, although at the same time we understand that every idea, every story, has a precedent?
...moreThe Blurb #10: Managing Writers in the Workplace – A Guide for Employers
Writers are most inspired when they have no time to write, thus employment keeps them writing, and suppresses maladaptive behaviors most of us are happy to read about but don’t want to ever actually see.
...moreMourning the Book
I expected to feel a sense of accomplishment when I finished Wallace Stegner’s “Angle of Repose,” but instead I felt lost, grief-stricken. It was a mixture of sadness for the main character and a fear that I might yet ruin my own life—but mostly I wanted to be back in the middle of that book.
...moreA Remembrance of Frank McCourt
“Sit back. I’m going to tell you a story,” Frank said in his brogue, looking into the distance like a Homerian epic-teller. “Don’t you ever dare steal it.”
...moreSomalian Refugee Writers Show the Way
Dadaab is not an oasis. There is no water. In July, food rations are expected to be cut back to 1000 calories a day. The camps are short 38,000 latrines. Every year only twenty students from the entire camp escape to university, the only legitimate way out.
...moreA Faithful Grope in the Dark
Are marketing departments running the major publishing houses? Do editors and agents know what they’re doing? Are small presses the future of literature? Is everything a crapshoot? What’s a first-time novelist to do?
...moreWas This Review Helpful? Amazon and the Search for an Unassailable Masterpiece
One customer review of “The Catcher in the Rye” warns readers that it will make you “want to kill yourself.” Another calls Holden Caulfield a “whiney, immature, angst ridden teenager who need[s] a smack in the head.”
...moreBeyond the Pleasure Principle: One Woman’s Reading History
When I started reading as a child, it was an immoderate, late-night indulgence of sweaty palmed, pupil-dilating gluttony. Books were a drug, and civilized society was the pusher. And I got really really high.
...moreWelcome to Rumpus Books
At The Rumpus, we believe that a healthy literary culture is one which embraces writing of all kinds, by authors of all stripes – young and old, established and emerging, traditional and experimental, writing from the margins or from (or about) the heart of mainstream culture, published by “major” houses or by smaller presses.
...moreIs the Internet Ruining Our Lives?
We’re distracted, our attention is shot, we are under surveillance, and we don’t care! We like being linked and friended by strangers who may or may not be who they say they are.
...moreA Challenge to Publishers: Just Say No to Gonzo
We’d like to introduce you to The Blurb, the Rumpus Books blog. Check this space for frequent posts about the state of our writing culture, our literary community, and the writer’s life, written by authors, editors, writing teachers, and readers. If there’s a topic you’d like us to discuss, drop us an email at [email protected]. […]
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