“If we are looking for a single category to explain why women are better represented among best-selling authors today, the Literary/None category is our best candidate. Most best-selling books fall into this category, and its change over time closely matches the overall gender ratio, shifting from extreme bias in the 1980s to close to parity in the 2000s.” Rosie Cima has put together a beautifully thorough and thoughtful analysis of gender, best-seller lists, and publishing for The Pudding. For a more exegetical analysis, consider our own Sonya Chung‘s exploration of writing across gender lines.
Approaching Parity
Not His Best Work
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The One-Sitting Novel
Looking to start (and finish!) a novel in a day? Electric Literature has 17 short novel recommendations, including work from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Shirley Jackson and Marilynne Robinson.
Amazon’s Numbers Are In
The Digital Reader rounded up a list based on Amazon’s end of year book sales. Some interesting factoids: Dan Brown‘s Origin: A Novel was the most read and gifted book this holiday season, and Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale was the year’s most borrowed book from Prime Reading. Pair with: our cheat sheet for Kindle (and other e-reader) owners.
Susan Orlean’s Library Book
Year in Reading alum Susan Orlean’s next book will be entitled The Library Book. It will be “a love letter to an endangered institution, exploring their history, their people, their meaning and their future as they adapt and redefine themselves in a digital world.” The book will focus in particular on the unsolved 1986 razing of the Los Angeles Central Library.
Young Eliot
There’s a new biography of T.S. Eliot out, and this one concentrates on the poet’s American childhood and his transition from a youthful Tom to the now-famous T.S. (just in case you needed some context for that new writer’s retreat.)
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Levin and Vronsky Are Dead
November 16th marks the release of the new film version of Anna Karenina (written by Tom Stoppard), which you can watch the trailer for here. It might also be a good time to brush up on the novel itself.
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Sex, Violence, & Satire Contest
Mixer publishing is running a “Sex, Violence, & Satire” contest with a $1,000 prize, and there’s still time to enter. So, if you’ve been chewing on the idea of writing a story containing “sex and satire,” “violence and satire,” or “sex, violence, and satire,” then consider this motivation to finish it up.
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Kill Your Crutches
“Other favorites I’ve found myself overusing include ‘she nodded,’ ‘she raised her eyebrows,’ and ‘she walked home slowly / she slowly walked home.’” Maria Murnane writes for the Amazon Author Insights blog (full disclosure: Amazon helps us keep the lights on around here!) about how to watch out for crutch words.
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