You might have seen the new Little Women trailer by now. In a series of quick cuts, the eminently familiar faces of Emma Watson and Saoirse Ronan, as well as the faces of Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen, flash on the screen: 2019’s wholesome and soft-feminist embodiment of those four famous girls some of us know so well from childhood. Unobjectionable, right? A new book called March Sisters also comes out this year, containing the musings of four well-known writers on their relationships to the book’s protagonists. But what about the latest adaptation of Emily Dickinson‘s life, in which Hailee Steinfeld plays a punk-rock, badass Dickinson who writes about “wild nights”—and isn’t talking about religious ecstasy? For The Guardian, Adrian Horton asks how modernized should literary adaptations be? What liberties is it okay to take?
The Art of the Adaptation
Confessions of a Ghostwriter
“There are people out there who want you to write their novels for them,” observes professional ghostwriter Sari Botton. Over at Scratch, she shares some advice for breaking into the industry. Also, the magazine has made her longer article about “the spooky finances behind her gigs” free to read – all you have to do is register.
The 7 Habits of Self-Help
“I have learned to consume them in secret, in my own home, reading them the way you would eat a bag of M&M’s that you keep stashed behind the kale chips.” Jake Tobin Garrett for Electric Literature about the allure of self-help books. See also:“Unleashing the Essence of Self-Help Books in Three Simple Steps.”
“Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”
Powell’s Books teamed up with Rogue Ales and Spirits to create White Whale Ale. “Infused with the seafaring spirit of Moby-Dick,” White Whale Ale is sure to please any beer drinker in your family this holiday season – even if they did skip the Cetology sections of Melville’s classic.
Visible Man
Want to reverse a book ban? Start giving away free copies of the novel at your bookstore. Earlier this week, we reported that Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man was taken out of the Randolph County, NC school curriculum. But less than week later, the ban has already been lifted due to intense community backlash and a local bookstore undermining the decision. Board member Matthew Lambeth said, “I felt like I came to a conclusion too quickly.”
Book & Beer
To kick off German Literature Month, Melville House’s marketing manager picked the best beers to drink as you read Heinrich Böll. Now Dogfish Head’s brewmaster Sam Calagione has paired beers with a few other literary classics.
“The Scopes Monkey Trial of American literary culture”
That dictionary sitting on your bookshelf has a more scandalous past than you might think.
Kubrick’s motionless images
You can look at literally thousands of Stanley Kubrick’s photographs online through MCNY. I’m partial to the sets featuring the child boxers, Rosemary Williams, and Betsy von Furstenberg, but there are gems a plenty.
Digital Love
Jonathan Franzen’s 2011 Kenyon commencement speech, published this weekend in the New York Times, covers love, consumerism, and narcissism in the digital age. If you’re concerned with critical reception, looks like you’re not a creator of “serious art and literature,” in Franzen’s eyes.