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Novels Inspired by Opinion Polls? They’re Here, and They’re Weird

Pick up a novel and suddenly you’re at the whim of the author’s imagination. Plot, characters, setting — you have no say in these matters. This is part of the appeal of fiction. Now, perhaps for the first time since Choose Your Own Adventure, Tom Comitta tweaks the equation in “People’s Choice Literature,” coming out from Columbia University Press on June 3. The hefty 584-page volume contains two distinct works: “The Most Wanted Novel” and “The Most Unwanted Novel,” each incorporating results of an opinion poll on the literary preferences of 1,045 readers from across the United States. Read more

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‘Metallic Realms’ by Lincoln Michel

…a delightfully broad satire of many things: pulp sci-fi, literary fiction, writers’ groups, MFA programs, nerds™, Brooklyn thirtysomethings, and, most of all, the possibilities and pathologies of fandom culture. It is about the joy and necessity of artistic creation, the self-consuming doubt of struggling writers, the simultaneously symbiotic and parasitic relationship between art and fandom, and the musings of one extremely odd dude. It’s a hoot. Read more

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A Complete Guide to the Writings of John McPhee

In chronicling McPhee’s career where he broke ground applying devices long associated with fiction to the literature of fact, Noel Rubinton gives insights into McPhee’s techniques, choice of subjects, and research methods, shedding light on how McPhee turns complicated subjects like geology into compelling stories. Beyond detailing more than seventy years of McPhee’s writing, Rubinton recounts McPhee’s half century as a Princeton University writing professor, a little known part of his legacy. McPhee inspired generations of students who wrote hundreds of books of their own, also catalogued here. With an incisive foreword by New Yorker staff writer and former McPhee student Peter Hessler, Looking for a Story also includes extensive annotated listings of articles about McPhee, reviews of his books, and interviews, readings, and speeches. Whether you are already an admirer of McPhee or new to his writings, this book provides an invaluable road map to his rich body of work. Read more

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