This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
...morePosts Tagged: Guardian
Literary Fiction is Popular Fiction
Some authors feel insecure about writing genre fiction and consider literature a luxury brand. Genre fiction, after all, is supposed to be the goose that lays golden eggs and includes books people actually want to read—except that may not be true. Electric Literature takes the time to breakdown sales volume of literature and popular genres […]
...moreNot All Books Are Right for All People
The Captain Underpants series has topped banned book lists around the world. Dav Pilkey, the author of the popular children’s books, explains what it feels like to have written a famous banned book: People often ask me how I’d want to respond to those critics who would rather see my books pulled from shelves than handed to […]
...moreYoung Writers Turn to Hashtags
Oxford University Press has concluded that “hashtag” is the UK children’s word of the year, with kids using the term to connote emphasis and emotions. The press analyzed more than 120,000 short story entries from British children under thirteen to better understand how they use the English language.
...moreUsing Language to Combat Violence
Feminism needs stronger language to combat violence against women, argues Jacqueline Rose in the Guardian. Fourth-wave feminism must confront the issue of male-on-female violence globally, crafting new language “that allows women to claim their place in the world.” She points to various forms of violent oppression women face regularly, from genital mutilation to rape as […]
...morePhilip Roth is a Loser
He has won every other literary prize in the book, including the Man Booker International, the Prix Medicis Etranger, the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, a position of dominance that, in line with European-held stereotypes about his countrymen generally, only leaves him wanting more. Even though Philip Roth might have a whole plethora of […]
...moreKilling Margaret Thatcher
As a citizen I suffered from her, but as a writer I benefited. In the Guardian, author Hilary Mantel discusses her new short story about assassinating Margaret Thatcher and why it took her over 30 years to write it.
...moreLittle Jack’s Love Letters
I shall worship her with quiet dignity. I shall draw her attention to me by exploits, success, and possibly a small measure of fame,” wrote a young, romantically inclined Jack Kerouac to a friend in one of a cache of letters by the Beat author that has come to light. Writers often find interest in […]
...moreBooks about Books
In 2011, Phyllis Rose read every book on the LEQ-LES shelf in the New York Public Library and wrote about the experience in an essay collection called The Shelf. In doing so, Rose joined the long tradition of “bibliomemoirs”—a blend of autobiography and literary criticism. In the Guardian, Rachel Cooke examines this tradition and the […]
...moreNever Judge a Book by Its Blurb
Book blurbs are the new books covers. And at the Guardian, Nathan Filer says you shouldn’t judge a book by either: Cover blurbs aren’t reviews. They’re advertisements. No space for balanced, nuanced positivity. Nothing can be interesting; it must be fascinating. Good isn’t good enough; it must be great. With today’s post came “an epically […]
...moreThe Hawking Index
The Hawking Index was created by mathematician Jordan Ellenberg to measure how much of a book readers were actually reading, by analyzing Amazon’s “Popular Highlights” feature on Kindle devices. Over at the Guardian, writer and literary critic Alex Clark and columnist Tom Lamont debate whether it is truly important and necessary to get through a […]
...morePublishers Are Rich
Writers have been getting poorer, and it turns out publishers are partly to blame. The Guardian reports that while authors are expected to do more when it comes to marketing and promotion, and though electronic books have lowered costs for publishers, the beneficiaries of these savings tend to be the publishers rather than the authors: Nicola […]
...moreFriends Indeed
It turns out that French poet Charles Baudelaire wasn’t very fond of his compatriot Victor Hugo. Despite having the novelist’s support when prosecuted after publishing Les Fleurs du Mal, the poet may have secretly despised (or perhaps just envied) Hugo—in a newly discovered letter from Baudelaire to an unknown correspondent, he calls the writer “stupid” and […]
...moreLadies Drink Free
Whether glamorized or pitied, the figure of the alcoholic writer has long been a subject of cultural fascination. Having written a book on the usual suspects—Hemingway, Fitzgerald, et al.—Olivia Laing asks the unfortunately necessary follow-up question: okay, but what about the women? At the Guardian, she explores female writers’s reasons for drinking, as well as society’s tendency to […]
...moreFast and Slow Thinking
Psychologists believe that the brain has two complementary modes of thought. If you’re curious about the difference between system 1 (fast mode) and system 2 (slow mode), check out this Guardian review of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Because it’s never too late in the week to be reminded of our self-delusions. “Looking […]
...moreManufacturing Reality
“But if we are going to manufacture our reality, couldn’t we make it a bit better? The thing we seem to like manufacturing the best are enemies, and here we are all guilty. Al-Qaida manufactured a vision of the west dominated by Satan, and the west has manufactured a simplistic vision of the Islamic world […]
...moreUsing Facebook to Incite Riots now Punishable by Law in the UK
Two young adult males–Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22–both just received four-year sentences for using Facebook to incite a riot in their Cheshire hometown that never happened. Despite the announcement over Facebook concerning the riots that were purportedly going to occur, no one showed up to these locations apart from the police. The riot […]
...moreHow Did Albert Camus Really Die?
There is a new theory displacing the old view of Albert Camus’ death by car crash. The French philosopher, author and Nobel Prize winner was traveling with his publisher, Michel Gallimard, when they crashed into a tree in 1960, with his unfinished novel in tow. “The tragedy shocked and saddened France. But no one imagined […]
...moreThe Story Behind “The Road Not Taken”
I’ve often said that Frost’s well-known poem is one of the most misinterpreted in American poetry (among casual readers, that is), and this story in the Guardian seems to back me up. It tells the story of Edward Thomas and Robert Frost’s friendship. It’s a sad story, but a worthy one to spend some time […]
...moreBritish Hacking Scandal Roundup
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the British phone hacking scandal is the lack of coverage in the US press. Among the US newspapers, the NY Times is the only one I can find which has done significant reporting on the story, though the best work on the story comes from (no surprise) the Guardian. […]
...moreA Romance Novel Health Scare
For the most part, a quick glance at the cover of any romance novel is all it takes to reveal the formula that’s inside. For better or worse, it’s a genre of fantasied gender stereotypes and it has long had its place. But The Guardian is now reporting on research that points to the books […]
...moreMore on the Oxford Comma
As of yesterday, the Oxford Comma was seen reenacting moments from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail and generally acting like a spastic teenager. It is quoted as saying “I’m not dead yet,” “I feel happy,” and “I think I’ll go for a walk.” Haters of the Oxford Comma were overheard muttering to themselves […]
...moreWomen 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 favorite science fiction writing books, chosen by readers. “Is science fiction sexist? A bald, potentially […]
...moreEros in Athens
This sounds like one hell of a show–the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens (not the one in Georgia) has put together a collection of erotic art dating from the sixth century BC to the 4th century AD, including masterpieces from more than fifty international museums. It’s so risqué that one section is limited to […]
...moreSaturday Morning Links
Is the Bible too liberal for you? Too much of that “help the poor” and not enough sinner-smiting? Do you have no knowledge of ancient Greek and no experience in translation? Then you’re perfect for this project. Shirley Dent talks about the difference between idiom and slang, especially as it relates to culture. Reading old […]
...moreA New Take on the Movable Feast?
The Guardian has a strange (to me) story about the world’s cocaine bar, called Route 36. It’s in La Paz, Bolivia, and because it’s an after-hours club which, you read that right, serves cocaine, it’s constantly on the move. For some reason, the neighbors tend to complain. It’s not the idea of a cocaine bar […]
...morePoetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
Alison Flood, writing in The Guardian implores her fellow citizens to vote in the BBC’s poll for the nation’s favorite poet. She’s worried that there will be a rehash of 1995, when Britain chose Rudyard Kipling’s “If” as its favorite poem. Her personal choice of Gerard Manley Hopkins isn’t bad, in my opinion. I feel […]
...morePoetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
A confluence of politics and poetry: Senate Sotomayor votes explained in haiku. No great surprise, but poetry is disappearing from B&N bookshelves in Chico, CA. And pretty much every B&N, for that matter. Sometimes I feel like I should just put a link to Mike Chasar’s blog in every one of these posts. This one […]
...moreSometimes There’s Nothing Else To Do
Novelist Orhan Pamuk asks in The Guardian “why do beautiful scenes inspire us to kiss?” Millions of people who live outside the west – and especially those who, like me, live in Muslim countries – never get to see two lovers kissing on the lips in everyday life (of course, you do not necessarily have […]
...moreThe Forbidden Gaze
From The Guardian UK: “The story of how Actaeon was turned into a stag for glimpsing the naked goddess Diana has inspired artists through the centuries. Charlotte Higgins on a new exhibition that explores the idea of the forbidden gaze.” more…
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