The New Republic is, to put it mildly, not chuffed about the new Isabel Allende.
Neither Magical, nor Realism; Discuss…
Tuesday New Release Day: Walker, Somerville, Towles
Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles is out today, as is This Bright River by Patrick Somerville. And The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (reviewed here) is out in paperback.
YA Gay
Two American YA authors, Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith, were asked to "straighten" gay characters. Here is the rebuttal that followed.
Critical Texts
Louis Menand writes about why the women’s movement needed The Feminine Mystique (despite its shortcomings). You could also read a review of Rebecca Jo Plant’s Mom, which looks to The Feminine Mystique to understand why our culture blames mothers.
A Literary Thriller
Ahead of next week's publication of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the battle over Stieg Larsson's lucrative literary estate. (Thanks, Craig)
●
●
“You may better yourself by reading this, but who cares?”
“Usually, with a novel, you start with no idea what to do because your job is to create convincing characters and then they just run around getting crazy. The problem with writing a memoir, obviously, is you can’t do that because you sort of know what’s going to happen. Because you’re the character.” – Gary Shteyngart
●
●