Bibliotherapy for Fiction Lovers
Revenge of the Plumbers
Don Linn argues that despite all the excitement surrounding new business models and shiny new ereaders, 2012 will be the “revenge of the plumbers,” as the technical infrastructure needed to support the ebook boom comes into focus.
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Tar Pit Blues
Recommended Reading: Alexander Aciman on Canto 22 of Dante’s Inferno. (His essay is part of a series I’ve written about before.)
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This Week In Good People
In Bogotá, Colombia, a garbage collector by the name of Jose Gutierrez has been working tirelessly to rescue thrown-away children’s books for use in his homemade community library. If this doesn’t immediately call to mind Bohumil Hrabal’s classic Too Loud a Solitude, then it might be time for a re-read. Also, check out this Millions essay by John Yargo on Hrabal’s rambling fiction.
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“The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion.”
Anaïs Nin had a lot to say about writing erotic fiction. Notably, she was unwilling to “leave out the poetry” and “concentrate on sex” in its place, despite repeated requests from her anonymous client to do just that. On a lighter note, Seth Fried also has some advice for aspiring writers of erotica. Quick, somebody get both of these articles to E. L. James.
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The Chosen Ones
“The second prophecy was even more intense than the first one, and introduced a lot of new rules I didn’t even know existed, but everyone else seemed to kind of already know about them. But you know what? We’re a misfit band of teens who will do anything for each other now, like stand up to that town bully who’s not even scary to us anymore, now that we’ve faced pure evil and lived.” An excerpt of Mallory Ortberg’s best-selling YA novel.
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A Web of Allusions
Small Demons presents Storyverse, a website in which users are invited to explore the connections between their favorite books and the people, places, and cultural artifacts out of which they are woven. It’s difficult to explain, but painless to enjoy thanks to a beautiful GUI.
Ontological Studies of Swedish Furniture
Most readers nurse particular fantasies of stepping into their favorite books. Whether they dream of enrolling at Hogwarts, or signing up for MI6 with James Bond, they usually have a stable of settings that function as a means of escape. So imagine how strange and conflicting it was to be Jonathan Gottschall, the English professor who got a chance to enter Fight Club.
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Stephenie Meyer’s Body Snatchers
A mini-excerpt from Stephenie Meyer‘s bestseller for adults, The Host, just out in paperback.
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I don’t understand this insipid question. People have been reading for a long, long, long time. Does anyone seem happier to you because of it? More knowledgeable? Sure. More aesthetically well-rounded? Of course. But happy? What kind of bimbo question is that? What in the bloody hell does being happy have to do with anything? Eating a freaking ice cream cone makes you happy. That’s how important being ‘happy’ is.