Led by Millions Top Tenner The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, dystopia is unseating vampires as the dominant theme in teen fiction, according to The Independent. The paper lists several other examples of the hot new trend, including Plague by Michael Grant and Matched by Ally Condie. (We’d argue that with dystopian classics like 1984 and Lord of the Flies on teen reading lists for decades, this is an old trend that’s new again.)
The Teenage Years are More Dystopian Than Ever
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Bookstore MFA
“There’s something about shopping for books where you’re open for anything. You’re faced with a wall of books, and you don’t know anything about most of them. At some point, it’s just you and the poems.” Carl Adamshick talks with the Los Angeles Review of Books about Powell’s and the “bookstore MFA.” Pair with our own Janet Potter‘s essay on loving bookshops.
“A history of fire flooding and water flooding”
Not every Craigslist ad is noteworthy, but this property listing, titled “Gorgeous Rural Mountain Acreage” and hailing from Kentucky, is a notable (and sobering) exception. Full-Stop republished the whole thing, which includes warnings that “bears are known to be about” and “beautiful water seeps.”
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The Texas of Africa
“Nigeria did fracture once, however, and it is this story that Chinua Achebe, a giant of African letters, tells. His memoir of the moment describes when the country, yoked together artificially by British colonizers, split apart at a cost of more than a million lives.” The New York Times Book Review on the writer’s There Was A Country.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Dante, Wilson, Riley, Waite
New this week: Clive James’s translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Edward O. Wilson’s Letters to a Young Scientist, Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley, and The Carrion Birds by Urban Waite.
Dystopian novels are defintely the new “it” for young adults. Its about time too, I couldn’t stand seeing a new series about vampires. I think dystopian is a great genre for young people because it forces them to reflect on the society they live in, which is important contemplation for young people before they step out into the world.
Interesting timing – as I read and reviewed The Hunger Games just last night after much prodding from friends. That book is still getting lots of publicity and play. I was not at all impressed, but I agree that there are a lot of wonderful things for young adults to take from these post-Apocalyptic stories. While I think young people reading anything at all, even if it’s Twilight and the like, is a beautiful, wonderful thing – if authors manage to entertain AND provoke thoughtful discussion, all the better.