“The Books of Magic makes The Lord of the Rings, The Avengers, Harry Potter, and even Twilight all look like entries in the same broad genre of tween-superhero fantasy, in which someone insignificant gets mighty powers, fights the forces of evil, and ultimately triumphs. …The pop culture landscape starts to look like an endless row of Tim Hunters, the same successful formula applied again and again.” From The Atlantic, a look at how Neil Gaiman‘s The Books of Magic prefigured the runaway success of Harry Potter and the modern YA fantasy-adventure craze.
Harry Potter Before Harry Potter
Lost and Unpublished T.S. Eliot Prose to be Collected and Published
Scholars estimate that since T.S. Eliot’s death in 1965, “roughly 90 percent of his prose has been out of print and unavailable to literary scholars.” That will change this year with the publication of the first volume in Ronald Schuchard’s eight-volume work, The Complete Prose of T.S. Eliot.
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Jane Austen’s Wrath
Jane Austen is probably mad at us. Amy Watkin tells us why at McSweeney’s.
So Shiny
Our good friends at The Morning News just rolled out a spiffy new look this morning! It’s in support of their “news for nerds” mission, which we also wholeheartedly support. Congrats, guys. Might we suggest you celebrate by reading its co-founder (and Year in Reading alum) Rosecrans Baldwin‘s very funny diary from a few years back?
Tolstoy, More Than a Century Later
The Atlantic opens up its archives and stumbles across a November, 1891 profile of Leo Tolstoy that foreshadows his death.
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Just Kids Playlist
As Rachel Syme points out, the person who made the Spotify playlist of every song mentioned in Patti Smith’s Just Kids deserves a free drink or two.
Clancy Martin, Sans Pants
How to Sell author Clancy Martin, drawing on his previous career as a jeweler, kicks off a three-parter at the Paris Review blog about how a potential jewelry deal took him to New Orleans and he ended up out on the street, wearing a bath towel and a blazer.
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