The Guardian
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Mitchell Finds His Inner Tolkien
After reading from his forthcoming release Slade House at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, David Mitchell announced that he has created “his own version of middle earth.” Like Mitchell’s prior works, Slade House will incorporate various genres and points of view: I like to…
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The Curious Incident of Censorship
A Florida school has removed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time from its reading list, reports the Guardian. It’s not the first time the book has been deemed controversial, and author Mark Haddon had this to say about…
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Russian Publisher Steals Authors’ Names
Several western authors have had their names pirated by a Russian publisher that prints books about Vladimir Putin, reports the Guardian. The journalists, analysts, and authors did not write the books nor did they know about their publication. The Russian language…
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Ebooks Are Changing How Writers Write
The rise in popularity of e-books are changing how readers consume books. Readers now have short attention spans, and that is leading to writers adopting new styles. The Guardian takes a look at the impact of the rise of e-books…
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Home, Even in the Most Dangerous of Times and Places
For the Guardian, Julia Eccleshare explores why homelessness is rarely represented in children’s literature. What she finds is that novels for young readers tend to capitalize on the idea of “home” as a place of “fundamental security,” a theme that young readers…
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By Any Other Name
Sometimes privilege can be confusing. Over at the Guardian, male writers explain why they decided to publish under female pseudonyms: Does it help to be identified as a woman, or to have no gender at all? Someone needs to tell…
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Fitzgerald Can Be Funny, Too
The most recent issue of the Strand magazine includes a previously unpublished short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story, titled “Temperature,” was discovered in the Princeton archives by the managing editor of Strand, Andrew Gulli, who described the manuscript as one of…
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The Flippy Genius of Moebius
In memory of Dieter Moebius who passed away last week, the Guardian published an article tracing the artist’s immense influence on experimental music, from his work in Cluster and Harmonia through his solo projects. “‘I was more of the ‘flippy’ one,’…
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Does Age Matter?
With the publication of several new young adult novels by teen authors, Julia Eccleshare wonders if age impacts a novelist’s ability to connect with younger readers. In addition, Eccleshare returns to the origins of the young adult genre, and investigates the influence…
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The Politics of the Bride Body
Lindy West on what it was like being a fat bride, and the public politics of private acts: But “beauty” is a fraught concept. There’s an awkward three-way tension between wedding culture and feminism and fat acceptance – because of…
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Word of the Day: Virago
(n.); manlike or heroic woman; a woman of extraordinary stature, strength and courage; a domineering, violent or bad-tempered woman “I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on…
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Learning Outside the Classroom
With the goal of “encouraging kids to become lifelong readers,” the Obama administration has teamed up with charities and publishers to offer digital books to children of low-income families. The books will be made available through an app developed with the…