Looking for a New England writer’s retreat? Perhaps you could stay in T. S. Eliot‘s childhood summer home.
Retreat with Eliot
The Myth of the “Knausgaard-free Day”
Did Karl Ove Knausgaard’s autobiography become so popular in Norway that the country had to institute “Knausfaard-free days?” Casey N. Cep investigates.
New McEwan on the Way
Ian McEwan is going after religion in his latest novel. The Children Act will focus on the conflict of parents who refuse medical treatment for their children due to religious beliefs. You can expect the book in September.
Digital Books for Kids
A literature-loving dad tries to make sense of the new frontier: Digital books for kids.
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Contemporary Arabic Novels
Claudia Roth Pierpont writes about the contemporary Arabic novel in this week's New Yorker, highlighting Iraqi, Palestinian, and Egyptian examples.
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Farewell, Oyster
The Netflix-like book subscription service Oyster Books has shut down and most of its team is heading over to Google. Google is reluctant to admit that Oyster was a purchase, yet sources indicate they will begin paying investors for the right to hire most of their staff. As we wave goodbye, here is one last read from The Oyster Review.
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The Rise of Annotated Literature
Recommended Reading: On how Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice paved the way for the modern trend of literary annotation.
Confessional Criticism
“Contemporary criticism is positively crowded with first-person pronouns, micro-doses of memoir, brief hits of biography. Critics don’t simply wrestle with their assigned cultural object; they wrestle with themselves, as well. Recent examples suggest a spectrum, from reviews that harmlessly kick off with a personal anecdote, to hybrid pieces that blend literary criticism and longform memoir.” On why critics get personal in their essays.
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