Laura Miller wants us all to stop calling The Wire a Victorian novel, because it is in fact a television drama.
Still not bleak house.
Shatzkin on Digital Revolution
“The book business is a cork floating on a digital device stream,” writes Mike Shatzkin. Is publishing living “in a world not of its own making?”
For Her
Leave it to Roxane Gay to come up with a novel format for an essay on the feminist novel. In the new issue of Dissent, she presents eleven theses on the topic, including references to Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Sample quote: “Not every novel that concerns itself with the lives of women is a feminist novel. Fifty Shades of Grey is not a feminist novel.” You could also read our own Edan Lepucki on the problem with feminist anthems.
Man Middle School Was Rough, Huh?
“[B]eing twelve is its own psychosexual dystopian satire, and I was not in on the joke.” Abbey Fenbert writes for Catapult about Aldous Huxley‘s Brave New World, reading-while-tween, and being a seventh-grade book censor. See also: our own brave editor-in-chief, Lydia Kiesling, on reading Huxley a week after last November’s election.
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Unbreakable
Recommended reading: Wil S. Hylton profiles Laura Hillenbrand and the effects of chronic fatigue syndrome on her writing in a piece for The New York Times Magazine, just in time for the release of the film adaptation of Unbroken.
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“That’s Just My Life and It Seems Quite Normal to Me.”
Grappling with Language
“Aposiopesis: To cut short a trash-talking opponent mid-taunt by suplexing him. Can also be used in political debates.” Matt Seidel walks readers through a glossary of rhetorical wrestling terms.
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