The Guardian
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Staring Our Idols in the Face
For the Guardian, Roxane Gay sums up 2014 not so much as “public figures falling from grace… as we, the public, lowering our pedestals and staring our idols in the face.”
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Ways of Speaking
In his seminal book Ways of Seeing, critic and novelist John Berger deconstructed the framework of presuppositions through which we view visual images. Over at the Guardian, he reminds us that language is also a process, one in which layers…
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The Evolution of Fairy Tales
Fairy tales are a fundamental part of the human experience, an extension of the oral traditions of the earliest storytellers, and part of culture that becomes internalized. In part, the importance of fairy tales is their ability to change with…
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A Biography of the Biography
For literary biography to survive as a genre, it ought to take its lead from literature and go even further. For the Guardian, Stuart Kelly looks at the history of biographies and argues that the form should catch up with…
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Journalism vs. Silicon Valley
What is really at the heart of the debate over The New Republic? The tension between an engineering culture and an editorial culture is …damaging and oversimplified … but definitely real. At the recent Newsgeist conference – a coming-together of…
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Word of the Day: Ubeity
(n.); the condition or quality of being in a place, of being located or situated; whereness or ubication; from the Latin ubi (“where”) “I love repetition. I love doing the same thing at the same time and in the same…
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Genealogy of Hobbits and Hiawatha
Through his research for an article for the journal Tolkien Studies, John Garth believes he has discovered a surprising source text for several episodes from Middle Earth: Longfellow’s trochaic epic, “The Song of Hiawatha.” The dragon Smaug has long been…
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Ishiguro Admits To Binge Writing
Kazuo Ishiguro shares his experience writing the first draft of The Remains of The Day over a four-week period, which he calls “the Crash.” Each day he wrote from 9:00 am to 10:30 pm, hoping to “reach a mental state in which my…
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A Girl’s Guide to Activism
A seven-year-old in California scored a big win for the little guy (or, in this case, the little girl) by convincing Abdo Publishing to stop marketing their Biggest, Baddest Book of Bugs exclusively to boys. Young reader Parker Dains took…
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Diversity Matters
Daniel Handler’s (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) recent racist joke at the National Book Awards exposed an uncomfortable truth about the American publishing industry: its overwhelming whiteness. For the industry to survive, it must embrace diversity. Over at the Guardian, Carole DeSanti…
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On the “Novelty” of Strong Women
For the Guardian, Hannah Ellis-Peterson discusses the success of Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist. Since its debut this summer, the author’s first novel has received acclaim for its strong female characters. However, Burton has since expressed frustration over the perception of “strong women” in…
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The Optimistic Bear
Paddington Bear, the iconic British children’s book character, finds himself in a new film adaptation this year. The Guardian spoke with Paddington’s creator, the 88-year-old Michael Bond. With 35 million books in print in more than 40 languages, Paddington has…