literature

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To an Artist Dying Young
To an Artist Dying Young
OPINION
Jan 25, 2008 12:15 PM CST

To an Artist Dying Young

Disband cult of squandered potential and concentrate on accomplishments

(Newser) - Heath Ledger's death at 28 recalls a long tradition of bright young careers snuffed out before their time, from Shelley and Keats to James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. The Romantic ideal of the doomed artist holds great appeal, Ben Macintyre writes in the Times of London, but we go too...

If You Really Want to Hear About It ...

Though pushing 60, Holden Caulfield's story never gets old

(Newser) - Holden Caulfield was an angsty teen before James Dean and rock and roll made alientaed youth an icon. "There's really not the sense of teen culture that there is now," says the producer of "Gossip Girl." NPR takes the measure of Holden, J.D. Salinger, and...

Cell Phone Novels Take Japan by Storm

Audience, sales huge for works written, read on handsets

(Newser) - Japan’s literary world has been rocked by the ascendancy of cell phone novels: serial works written mainly by young women on their phone keypads. The New York Times reports five of 2007’s 10 bestsellers were cell phone novels reprinted as conventional books—despite the fact that the country’...

Salon 's Best Books of the Year
Salon's Best Books of the Year
Dec 12, 2007 5:30 PM CST

Salon's Best Books of the Year

Site picks top-fives in fiction and non-fiction

(Newser) - Salon chooses its favorite books of the year, looking to those it "propped up next to our bowls of breakfast cereal." The first five are fiction; the others non-fiction:
  • "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz
  • "Sacred Games" by Vikram Chandra
  • "Then
...

British Library Acquires Harold Pinter Archive

$2.2M keeps Nobel laureate's papers in the country

(Newser) - The British Library has bought the papers of Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning playwright, paying more than $2.2 million for 150 boxes of material, writes the Times of London. After the purchase of several British authors' archives by American universities, Pinter committed himself to finding a home in his...

Hornby Seeks YA Audience
Hornby Seeks YA Audience
NEW RELEASE
Dec 11, 2007 2:00 PM CST

Hornby Seeks YA Audience

Slam features a talking Tony Hawk poster

(Newser) - Nick Hornby, the British novelist best known for High Fidelity and About a Boy, is temporarily shucking characters who refuse to grow up for characters who really aren't grown up. Hornby's first young adult novel, Slam, is about a teen who gets his girlfriend pregnant and talks his problems over...

Book Lovers Make Plea for Better Reviews
Book Lovers Make Plea for Better Reviews
OPINION
Dec 9, 2007 4:51 AM CST

Book Lovers Make Plea for Better Reviews

New Republic calls shrinking coverage a risk to society

(Newser) - The book may be in decline in our fast-changing world, one complete with electronic readers and shrinking attention spans, but the editors at New Republic will have none of it. They reject the notion that books must conform to the digital age and take newspapers to task for the decline...

Writer Hardwick Dead at 91
Writer
Hardwick
Dead at 91
Dec 4, 2007 5:05 PM CST

Writer Hardwick Dead at 91

Critic, essayist, novelist co-founded New York Review of Books

(Newser) - Elizabeth Hardwick, co-founder of the New York Review of Books, died Sunday at 91, the Times reports. The Kentucky-born Hardwick moved north in 1939—“my aim was to be a New York Jewish intellectual,” she said later—and became a critical giant. "I have always written essays...

NYT 's Top Reads for 2007
NYT's Top Reads for 2007
Nov 22, 2007 5:17 PM CST

NYT's Top Reads for 2007

Agent Zigzag and Foreskin's Lament among best 100 in Book Review

(Newser) - Recent write-ups say Americans should read more—but where to start? Try the New York Times' 100 notable books of 2007, ranging from fiction to poetry, essays to bios. Among the acclaimed page-turners:
  • Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal, Ben Macintyre
  • The Art of Political
...

Wharton Letter Bolsters Suicide Theory

Heroine Lily Bart overdosed deliberately, note implies

(Newser) - A recently-discovered letter by Edith Wharton provides new evidence in The House of Mirth's lingering literary mystery, suggesting that heroine Lily Bart does, in fact, intend to kill herself at the book's end, the New York Times reports. Though the ambiguous text has led many to believe she died of...

Literary Bull Blundered and Thrived
Literary Bull Blundered
and Thrived
Nov 10, 2007 7:33 PM CST

Literary Bull Blundered and Thrived

Time and Salon critics recall brilliant, failed, iconic Mailer

(Newser) - Egotist, chauvinist, brawler, Mailer battled "a culture subsiding into room temperature," Time says. His work vented "his own inner conditions" as he lurched from fame at age 25 to so-so books to his "brilliant" Armies of the Night in 1968. He made big gaffes—blaming patients...

Walter Mosley's Top Literary Picks
Walter Mosley's Top Literary Picks
Nov 6, 2007 4:10 PM CST

Walter Mosley's Top Literary Picks

Devil in a Blue Dress author selects five most influential books

(Newser) - Walter Mosley has won accolades from readers and critics alike for his Easy Rawlins detective series, and the novelist has a philosophical side, too. Newsweek presents his list of important works that "most greatly impacted the intelligence, potential and humanity of the people of the world."
  1. The Theory
...

The Greatest Novel Never Read
The Greatest Novel Never Read
Oct 31, 2007 8:10 PM CDT

The Greatest Novel Never Read

Contemporary authors admit to the classics they've never tried—or tried and failed—to read

(Newser) - Just because they're accomplished writers doesn't mean they've made it through Ulysses. Slate asks contemporary authors to confess to the must-read classics they've never read:
  1. Amy Bloom, Moby Dick
  2. Stephen Carter, Harry Potter
  3. Jennifer Egan, Buddenbrooks

New Lead on Poe's Death Excites Buffs

Accounts of Poe's brain may solve 'biggest literary mystery'

(Newser) - Accounts of Edgar Allan Poe's exhumed brain may prove how he died, says Matthew Pearl, author of The Poe Shadow. He found reports of Poe's "dried and hardened" brain, "diminished in size," in old newspapers—and confirmed them as signs of a tumor. One Poe descendant says...

Norman Mailer Back in Hospital
Norman Mailer Back in Hospital
Oct 17, 2007 12:43 PM CDT

Norman Mailer Back in Hospital

After lung collapse, ex-wife says combative writer not ‘doing well’

(Newser) - Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Norman Mailer was hospitalized yesterday in New York for respiratory ailments; his ex-wife said surgery had succeeded in removing scar tissue after a lung collapse—but she worried that he’s “not in very good shape.” It's the second recent scare for the 84-year-old...

Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize
Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize
Oct 11, 2007 6:42 AM CDT

Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize

Feminist pioneer awarded literature's top honor

(Newser) - The Swedish Academy has awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Literature to Doris Lessing, the Persian-born British author whose novels stand at the center of the feminist movement. The author of such classics as The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist did not figure among pundits' predictions for this year's...

A Wrinkle in Time Author Dead at 88

Children's, sci-fi favorite L'Engle wrote 60-plus books

(Newser) - Madeleine L'Engle, author of more than 60 works of science fiction, religious meditation, poetry, drama, and young adult fiction, died yesterday in Connecticut, the New York Times reports. She was 88 years old. Her most famous book, A Wrinkle in Time, has sold more than 6 million copies since its...

Booker Shortlist Mixes McEwan, New Names

New Zealander given top odds for leading literary gong

(Newser) - A diverse group of novels has been selected for the shortlist for this year's Man Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the English language. The six novels in the running cover wide terrain, from civil war in Papua New Guinea to environmental disaster in India to...

Kerouac Was Klutzy Fatalist, Tragic Goofball

For On the Road 's 50th, friends remember the real Jack

(Newser) - For today’s 50th anniversary of On the Road’s publication, Slate canvassed some of Jack Kerouac’s associates, creating a dramatic and nostalgic picture. The poet’s agent remembers he was thrown for a loop by the “demon” of “public reaction, celebrity,” and Carolyn Cassady recalls...

Readers Hurt by Paper Cuts
Readers Hurt
by Paper Cuts
Sep 3, 2007 4:40 PM CDT

Readers Hurt by Paper Cuts

Newspapers dropping book reviews helps confine ideas to a 'literary ghetto'

(Newser) - Newspapers are under financial pressure, and one of the first things to go is often the book reviews. But author and editor Steve Wasserman thinks that's a serious problem. “Civilization is built on a foundation of books,” he declares in a polemic in CJR, and  stripping their pages...

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