Lindsey Drager considers the novella and argues that it is neither a feminine form nor a smaller type of novel. As she puts it, “while other fiction aims outward, the novella curls in, coiling around itself until there’s no distinction between the story’s body and the story’s shell.” Pair with our own Nick Ripatrazone’s essay on the art of the novella.
This Is Not a Novel
Kindle Highlights and Lowlights
Amazon is now aggregating the data from the "highlighting" feature on the Kindle to find out what text is highlighted the most across all Kindle users. Amazon is calling the feature "Most Highlighted Passages of All Time" and the results couldn't be more boring. (via)
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New Releases: Foer, Coupland, King
Stephen King's latest, Under the Dome, is out today. It's 1,100 pages and is being compared to The Stand. Meanwhile, Generation A by Douglas Coupland is also hitting shelves. It's a sequel to Coupland's famous, influential debut, Generation X. Also out last week was Jonathan Safran Foer's treatise on vegetarianism, Eating Animals, which picked up a mixed review in the New Yorker.
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Not Trolling Can’t Get Mad
The Digital Reader has done us all a solid on this summer Monday and put together a list of five blogs featuring bad book covers. Now That I'm a Ghost I'm Gay, indeed.
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Do Not Shout
“Always practice basic online etiquette, or 'netiquette.' Consider including emoticons to help add personality to your message and set the right tone. Also, be sure to stay on topic in a conversation and avoid writing in all caps, which is the online equivalent to shouting.” The Amazon Author Insights blog (full disclosure: Amazon helps us keep the lights on around here!) has a list of guidelines for authors looking to engage with their fans (and critics) on Goodreads. More recommended reading: our own Emily St. John Mandel on how to respond to your critics.
Linkage
The CS Monitor has a little piece about the travails of teenage novelists: "A youthful sensation doesn't always translate into a distinguished literary career. For many teen authors, that first book proves a hard act to follow. Some never again meet with the kind of praise critics heaped upon their first offerings."Speaking of (once) young phenoms, Bret Easton Ellis has a flashy new Web site that promotes his upcoming novel, Lunar Park. I've never read Ellis, but the Web site seems to indicate that this upcoming novel is about a character named Bret Easton Ellis, and it may or may not be autobiographical. Very meta. There's an excerpt in there too.I've been enjoying EarthGoat lately. It's a group blog out of Iowa City.
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Folk Lore
If his new novel Against the Country is any indication, Ben Metcalf gets his best inspiration from the worst of rural America. In the book, which features a panoply of awful crimes and obscenities, Metcalf rides roughshod over the notion of the rural idyll. In Bookforum, onetime Millions staffer Emily Colette Wilkinson reviews the novel, calling it “a gut-busting knee slapper” in spite of its glut of macabre scenes.