At the Guardian, Jane Smiley discusses the author she turns to when she needs something comfortable and reassuring: Anthony Trollope. “No matter what I’m reading or rereading,” Smiley says, “I am intrigued and reassured by Trollope’s insights into the minds of both men and women, as well as the undercurrent of good humour that runs through all the books (including one of my favourites, He Knew He Was Right).”
Jane Smiley on Comfort Reading Anthony Trollope
“The Black Count”
True Detective director Cary Fukunaga will soon turn his attention to a biopic about Alexandre Dumas’s father.
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The YA Diet
From Hunger Games‘s Katniss to Divergent‘s Tris, today’s YA heroines are confident, intelligent, powerful, and always skinny. At The Atlantic, Julianne Ross argues that this scrawny stereotype ends up belittling the heroines’ independence and strength. “Just as women are expected to be sexual but not slutty, pure but not prudish, heroines should be strong but not buff.”
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Maybe Now You Can Understand It.
Artist John Vernon Lord drew inspiration from Irish literature’s “books of the dark” to adapt James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake into a series of illustrated images. Over at The Guardian, Lord discusses how he developed some of his pages.
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Saving Bookstores
Recommended Reading: On the “small, but noticeable, sustained, and continuous” resurgence of indie bookstores.
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To the Choir
It can be hard for critics to strike a balance between high theory and accessible prose. For James Wood, the key is to retain enough theoretical knowledge to come up with an insightful point, while still retaining the ability to write in a natural dialect. In The Guardian, he talks about his own relationship with books.
Jonathan Lethem’s Brooklyn
Jonathan Lethem gives The Guardian a tour of his Brooklyn neighborhood.
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Lolita Grows Up
Vladimir Nabokov‘s Lolita has gone through many cover transformations over the years. Did you know this one was supposed to be sideways?
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