The Guardian
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Rest in Peace, Scotty Moore
Elvis Presley’s lead guitarist passed away this week in Nashville at the age of 84, and in tribute the Guardian has published a piece discussing how the musician shaped Elvis’s country-blues rockabilly sound so evident in songs like “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Hound Dog,” “Blue…
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Censorship in Ukraine
During anti-government protests in the Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, Oleh Shynkarenko, a journalist and blogger, found himself turning to Facebook after some of his blog posts were deleted, presumably by security forces. What he shared was a novel about about a man…
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Three Flashes of God
The child wanted to name the rabbit Actually, and could not be dissuaded from this. For its final Flash Friday column, curated by Tin House, the Guardian shares three new excerpts from Joy Williams’s most recent collection, 99 Stories of God.
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Love at First Book
For the Guardian, Alison Flood reports that users who share reading interests on a new dating app improve their chances of finding a good match: I’m not sure about the sexy transformation, but I do know that whether it’s with a…
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The Detainees’ Tales
A group of authors in Britain is using the format of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to raise awareness of the plight of modern-day refugees: They don’t feel safe enough to share their stories themselves … but they have a tremendous frustration at being voiceless. So we came…
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Liberal Censorship
In May, Portland’s school board voted to ban textbooks that questioned the severity and human causes of climate change, drawing criticism not only from the right, but from free-speech advocates as well: “Social studies texts accurately describing the political debate…
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Rabid Puppies Butt Invasion
The Rabid Puppies, an MRA group trying to overthrow the “progressive conspiracy” poisoning the Hugo Awards for the second year in a row, have continued their fearless activism by nominating Chuck Tingle’s Space Raptor Butt Invasion for Best Novelette. Tingle,…
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Writing Badly
Bad writing is almost always a love poem addressed by the self to the self. The person who will admire it first and last and most is the writer herself. Over at the Guardian, writer Toby Litt explores what makes…
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Where Books Meet Their Ends
For the Guardian, Sam Jordison draws parallels between Don DeLillo’s previous novels (White Noise and Omega) and his most recent novel, Zero K: In Point Omega, we’re told: “The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.” In White…
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Poet Tripping
Carol Ann Duffy, the UK’s poet laureate, has invited three poets to join her on a road trip through England, Wales and Scotland, which will take them from Falmouth to St Andrews over the course of a fortnight. From June…
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Fairytales Still Make Our Skin Crawl
Fairytales can be seen as formulaic, but these formulas provide the bones for modern writers to fill in as they please; adaptations of classic fairytales are still making bestseller lists and hitting the box office every few months, showing how…