Writing for Banned Books Month on the PEN American Center’s blog, our own Lydia Kiesling discusses Judy Blume’s Forever. It’s a book many have “lobbied vigorously to pry … out of the hands of enthralled youth since 1975,” Kiesling writes, which should prove that such lobbyists “weren’t very good readers” in the first place.
Lydia Kiesling on Blume’s Banned Book
Reading In The Future
Over the years, Maria Popova (aka Brain Picker) has provided readers with thousands of hours of diversion. But how, exactly, does she think we will read years from now?
“More allegorical than real”
Recommended Reading: Deborah Friedell on Ian McEwan’s The Children Act.
Third Way
You may have heard that E.L. Doctorow passed away last week. The Ragtime and Billy Bathgate author was known for his mastery of historical fiction. At The Guardian, Michael Chabon offers a tribute, arguing that Doctorow found a way out of the binary trap between postmodernism and realism.
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An evening with Neal Stephenson
Next month, the University of Washington is hosting an Open Bookclub with Neal Stephenson, and his novel, Reamde. There will also be a panel of interdisciplinary commentators.
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Is Poetry Ever Nonfiction?
A few weeks ago, I let you know about The Guardian’s new series spotlighting the best 100 nonfiction books of all time. Today, we have a curious addition to the list: Ted Hughes’ 1997 collection Birthday Letters. Here’s a bonus Millions review of Jonathan Bates’ controversial new biography of Hughes, Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life.
Septuagenarian Akutagawa Prize Winner
Paging Sonya Chung and the rest of the Bloom gang: one of this year’s Akutagawa Prize winners is a seventy-five year old woman named Natsuko Kuroda. How’s that for a Post-40 Bloomer? (h/t Dustin Kurtz)
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Very strange…A writer at the AV Club wrote about this same book on the same day…
http://www.avclub.com/articles/judy-blumes-forever-taught-70s-teens-about-sex-and,84696/