Oh, have I mentioned I’m excited about Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown? WELL I AM. Here’s Zen Cho on writing three novels and throwing two of them out. Eliding the horrors of American slavery. The development of American English and the new London dialect that’s replacing Cockney. Literary blind spots from famous authors. Writing letters to trees. “I don’t see gender/color/difference” is bullshit, and let’s not ever forget it. An appreciation of Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, which recently (sob!) ended its run. What women write about when we write about the apocalypse. This article about Auroville is shocking because this…
4 CommentsReading the End Posts
Note: I received a review copy of Game of Queens from the publisher for review consideration. This has no bearing upon my super-intense vengeful emotions about Haman and their contribution to my enjoyment of the book; about which, see further remarks below. In my 2014 book preview, my expressed wish for Game of Queens, a retelling of the story of Esther, was that it not use the word sex as a euphemism for genitalia. And it did not. It also turned out to feature Daniel, of lions-not-eating-him fame, being gay without his close friends fretting too much about it, and it managed the neat trick of vilifying not Esther nor Vashti nor…
20 CommentsHappy Wednesday! This week, we’re talking about adaptations of classic novels and reviewing Alexander McCall Smith’s updating of Jane Austen’s Emma. We’re also getting back to our roots with a polar explorer update! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 44 Books discussed in this podcast are listed, in order, below. If any book is an adaptation of another book, the source material is listed in parentheses. Wicked, Gregory Maguire (The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum) Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory…
5 CommentsIn case you missed Shirley Jackson Week, about which I admit I was rather slapdash, I’ve put together a lovely round-up of the posts we were treated to last week! We Have Always Lived in the Castle Words for Worms Harriet Devine A Striped Armchair The Sundial (my fave!) Desperate Reader Emerald City Book Review Gaskella Life among the Savages & Raising Demons Shiny New Books The Road through the Wall Stuck in a Book Short stories! a gallimaufry on “Paranoia” ChrisBookarama on “The Daemon Lover” things mean a lot on “The Daemon Lover” The Cheap Reader on The Lottery…
4 CommentsAn infographic to explain how you should deal with your anger on the internet. At first blush, I think these rules are pretty solid! You? It’s about ethics in book reviews. On Twitter the other day someone tweeted that “Strange Fruit” was by two white dudes, and I thought, “On the Nina Simone tribute album, you mean?” Nope. She meant there is a new comic book called Strange Fruit featuring an enormously strong mute alien who looks like a black man, and the two authors of it are both white dudes. So, worse than my first thought. A story about…
11 CommentsIdentity is a complex and infinitely divisible monster. (Fight me sometime over the legitimacy of my claim to Southern-girl identity.) In the fascinating first few chapters of There Was and There Was Not: A Journey Through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia, and Beyond, Meline Toumani explores the close bonds among diaspora Armenians, as well as the oodles of ways they have found of distinguishing themselves from each other: speakers of Western Armenian vs. speakers of Eastern Armenian, Armenians from Lebanon vs. from Brazil vs. from Turkey vs. from actual Armenia. What they share in common is a mistrust of Turks and a passionate desire to make the Turks and the…
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