Boyle emerges not just as a consummate crime writer but as a poet of the underclass, unwaveringly portraying lives gone wrong but still finding a little moonlight “spilling its light on the cracks in the sidewalks and all the cracked hearts.” Read more
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STEPHEN CRANE, born 150 years ago on this date, had a working life that lasted barely a decade, but he created an immense literary afterlife. His enthusiastic disciple Ernest Hemingway handed Crane’s stories to aspiring young writers seeking advice. Ralph Ellison said that Crane influenced not only Hemingway but also most modernist writers of the 20th century, including himself. Southern novelist Caroline Gordon conveyed her admiration for Crane to her protégé Flannery O’Connor. No American writer before Crane portrayed immediate perceptual and sensuous experience with such power. “He had great, great genius,” Henry James repeatedly said. For all the praise heaped on Crane’s idiosyncratic style, a question remains: How did he learn to write that way? Read more
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The region used to be almost synonymous with magic realism but recent bestselling fiction draws on a legacy of dictatorship, poverty and sinister folklore. Read more
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The World Series is here. Even though it’s the (ugh) Braves vs. the (ugh) Astros, it’s still time to put on a ballcap, break out of a box of Cracker Jack, and head on out to the old ballgame… or least stream one online. Baseball has been known as America’s “national pastime” since the 1850s. While the sport may have been surpassed by football in the TV ratings, there’s still something about wooden bats, leather gloves, and grass-and-dirt diamonds that feels distinctly American. And distinctly literary. Read more
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Whether it’s fiction, fantasy, or biographies, books play a major role in our lives and we must celebrate their creators! Today, take a moment to appreciate the author(s) that spent countless hours writing your favorite books. Read more
No Modernism Without Lesbians by Diana Souhami has won the 2021 Polari prize for LGBTQ+ books. The account of a group of gay women who helped to begin the modernist movement was called “richly researched, entertaining and hugely enjoyable” by judge and CEO of the National Centre for Writing, Chris Gribble. It offers “insight into the lives, passions and legacies of a group of outstanding women who together helped change the course of their culture”, he added. “Souhami is a brilliant guide and this book a celebration, corrective and fillip all in one.” Read more
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Despite causing a moral panic, these salacious tales helped boost literacy in Victorian England. Read more
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This evening, at a virtual ceremony hosted from the Austin Central Library, Kirkus Reviews announced the winners of its eighth annual Kirkus Prizes in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature. Each of the three winners, chosen from the 1,531 books that received Kirkus stars this year, and narrowed down from the list of finalists announced in September, will receive a cash prize of $50,000. Read more
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To read this novel is to tally a high school yearbook’s worth of superlatives for Shteyngart: funniest, noisiest, sweetest, most entertaining. To those I will add a few superlatives that were not celebrated at my own high school: most melancholic, most quizzical, most skilled at vibrating the deepest strings of the anthropoid heart. Read more
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Tursten effectively juxtaposes a cozy, Agatha Christie–like tone against the often surprisingly dark nature of Maud’s recollections, which are rife with clever satirical jabs and delicious ironies. This absorbing dive into the mind of a ruthless pragmatist posing as a Swedish Miss Marple will please psychological-thriller fans, once they realize that Maud isn’t nearly as cozy as she looks. Read more
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