“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.
Kill Your Crutches
Isaac Asimov Takes on ‘The Bible’
What happens when one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers decides to take on the most widely read book in the world?
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Zadie Smith’s Headed to Hollywood
It’s a big season for Zadie Smith. While most of us eagerly await the publication of her latest book, NW, the author’s earlier work, On Beauty, is set to become a feature film. Smith’s first book to be dramatized on film was White Teeth, a UK mini-series from 2002 based on her book of the same name. (And available online if you have Hulu Plus.)
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American Book Awards
The 2014 National Book Awards were just announced earlier this week. In celebration, The Paris Review took a look back at the American Book Awards, which “serve as a reminder that ostensibly prestigious institutions—institutions whose authority and taste depend on their perceived stability—are just as susceptible to whims and trends as the rest of us, which is to say very.”
The World Outside
Recommended Reading: Jesse Barron on Matthew Crawford’s The World Beyond Your Head.
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“praise the Hennessy, the brown / shine, the dull burn.”
Recommended Reading: “Praise Song” by Nate Marshall, one of America’s brightest young poets.
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