“Utter devotion to the principle that distraction is Satan and writing is paramount can be just as poisonous as an excess of diversion,” writes Benjamin Nugent.
In Defense of Distraction
Branching Out
So you’ve read Haruki Murakami. Ready to venture into other Japanese literature? Ploughshares has recommendations for you. We reviewed a few of Murakami’s books if you’d like to read further.
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New Novel, New Excerpt
Darcey Steinke has a new novel, Sister Golden Hair, coming out this fall, and Granta has an excerpt available online. For more about Steinke, be sure to read Lydia Millet‘s praise for her early novel, Jesus Saves.
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The Pioneer Detectives: Now on iTunes!
Good news folks. The Pioneer Detectives, our new ebook original, is now available on iTunes.
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Happy Birthday, Lord Byron
Happy Birthday to Lord Byron, who was born on this day in 1788. Read some of his poems aloud or check out illustrations of “Don Juan” at Brain Pickings to celebrate his life’s works.
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The Art of Stealing
Richard Cohen writes about plagiarizing real people’s identities and the dirty side of writing. As Milan Kundera writes in The Art of the Novel, “The novelist destroys the house of his life and uses its stones to build the house of his novel.”
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What Work Is
Recommended Reading: Leah Falk looks at women’s writing and unpaid labor.
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Poison in the Plot
Agatha Christie could actually kill you. She studied pharmacology and learned how to create poisons, which led to her use of poisons in her novels. You could also read Daniel Friedman’s essay on solving the mystery of how to close a crime novel.