With Valentine’s Day rapidly approaching, the more bookish among you may be thinking about getting literary gifts for your loved ones. A swell idea, as far as we’re concerned, but be warned — when given as gifts, books can take on special, often unintended meanings, so choose with care. For instance, as much as we love American Psycho, we’d never gift it to someone we were interested in dating. It just kind of sends the wrong message (like, “I’m imagining your death right now”). So, to save you from any possible missteps, we’ve created a guide to what books not to give to your Valentine, whether you’ve been together for three weeks or three years, and offered our suggestions as to what you might slide across the candlelit table instead. Click through to see what we chose, and good luck.
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Yesterday, Dalkey Archive released a new edition of William Gaddis’ postmodern masterpiece, The Recognitions, the book that Jonathan Franzen called “the ur-text of postwar fiction.” The new edition reminded us of our undying love for postmodern literature — the chaotically playful, the metafictional, and the experimental alike — and inspired us to check out a few books missing from our collection, so we’ve put together an essential postmodern reading list for devotees both old and new. Click through to check out some of our favorite works of postmodern lit — and since of course this is only a starter list, and there are many important postmodern works not listed here (we don’t have unlimited reading time, you know), be sure to let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites in the comments.
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Like all literary nerds, we’re fascinated by the marginalia of our favorite authors, and recently we’ve been totally addicted to examining their handwritten manuscripts and journal entries. Thanks to the our new favorite Tumblr, Fuck yeah, manuscripts!, there are many examples at hand, but after spending a significant time sifting through, we wondered if we were really learning anything. In an attempt to be pop-psychologists, we checked out a 5-minute online handwriting analysis test (meant, obviously, for hiring managers), to see if we could dig up anything on our favorite writers. We found the results to be something like a horoscope — a little bit right for everybody, but probably kind of random. Click through to check out the handwriting of ten famous writers, and see what it might say about them.
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One of the most popular interview questions for writers is “what are you reading right now,” or for the more adventurous, “what are your own favorite books of all time?” The idea is, of course, twofold — that you can get a good suggestion and peek into that writer’s mind at the same time. We recently came across a list of David Foster Wallace’s favorite books, and aside from some very sensical choices (obviously he’d love The Screwtape Letters), we were kind of surprised — there was much more suspense and horror fiction than we would have expected from the giant of post-modernism. Curious, we decided to investigate the favorite books of some of our other favorite authors, to get a little reading-list inspiration and possible insight into their own internal workings. Predictable or not-so predictable, their choices are all pretty interesting — and we have now reading material for a month. Click through to get some reading advice from the best sources around, and let us know whose list most inspires you (or most matches your own) in the comments.
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Authors are a strange, particular bunch, with often weird habits and distinctive manners of dress. Marcel Proust, apparently, was so fond of his velveteen gloves that he wore them to bed (perhaps to preserve his smooth smooth hands), and countless authors have affected capes, walking sticks, and various other accoutrements worthy of acclaim. Some, however, have become icons in their own right, inextricably linked to their authors (and thus all the easier for turning into Halloween costumes). We love a good pipe, so we’ve collected some of the most iconic author accessories of all time — click through to see our picks, and let us know if we’ve missed your favorite writerly hat, hair clip, or affectation in the comments.
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The epigraph is a funny literary convention: excerpting lines of someone else’s work — or quotes, adages, lines of verse, lyrics, snippets of conversation, etc — to put before your own. The effect varies: often the epigraph serves as a sort of thematic gatekeeper, or simply sets the mood for the prose to come, sometimes it gives the reader a glimpse into the author’s intentions or inspirations, or it may serve as a joke or warning. They may seem a trivial part of the work they come attached to, but we think, if done properly, they can be very illuminating. In case you couldn’t tell, we’ve been thinking about the convention quite a bit lately, partly due to the numerous hours we’ve spent perusing one of our new favorite Tumblrs, Epigraphic, which collects the fragments. Some are funny, some are poignant, some are strange, but all of them are wonderful in their own way. Click through to read 25 of our all-time favorite epigraphs in literature, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your own favorites in the comments!
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We don’t know about you, but after we finish a dazzling piece of fiction, we want nothing more than to continue it in some way, to bring it to life in the physical realm. If our painting skills were anywhere as good as our reading skills, we would probably do just that, but alas, they are not. However, we can content ourselves with the knowledge that there are lots of wonderful works of visual, aural, and mixed-media art out there that are based on or inspired by books. Of course, many books are illustrated, and the illustrations are meant to reflect the story, but this is not exactly what we mean by “works of art inspired by works of literature” — otherwise this list would be full of artists like Ralph Steadman and Walter Crane, whose iconic illustrations knock our socks off. Instead, we tried to choose freestanding works that depicted or took influence from literature, whether directly or obliquely. Now, we are completely aware that the list of artworks influenced by literature is endless — especially if you consider the Bible literature — so here we’ve chosen a number of our favorite examples, trying to include both contemporary and classic works of art ranging from sketches to book-length collections of paintings to full-scale musical productions from artists both famous and largely unknown. Click through to see our list of great works of art inspired by great works of literature, and let us know your own favorites in the comments.
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It’s the end of the year, which means every media outlet and talkative friend has been regaling you with a fascinating list of their own personal favorite books of 2011. Now, we love lists as much as the next guy, but we also like to think a little bit about what these highly subjective choices might say about the listmaker. After all, you wouldn’t take reading advice from just anybody, now would you? Or even if you would, you should at least know what essential qualities their picks point to. Click through to read our (decidedly tongue-in-cheek) breakdown of what your favorite book of the year says about you, and in case you were wondering, our pick is on here too, and hey, we can cop to it. Read More »
Earlier this week, The New York Times published their annual list of 100 Notable Books, just in time for the holidays. While we can’t deny that every book on the list is a great pick, 100 is a pretty big number, so in case you don’t have the time or eye-strength to plow through their monster list, we’ve distilled it to the essentials, at least according to us. After all, while you probably don’t have 100 people on your holiday gift list, you probably do have 10, and you’ll find a little something for everybody here. Click through to see our favorites from their list, and let us know which of these you’re psyched to read — or which of the 100 you’d have chosen instead. Read More »
Today marks Sylvia Plath’s birthday, and though it may seem strange to celebrate the birth of a famous author by considering her death, we think it appropriate. Plath’s lifelong depression and suicidal tendencies inarguably informed her work, and as such were part of what makes her writing so compelling, and morbid as it may be, part of what has made her an essential part of the American canon. With that in mind, we have collected some of the most famous author suicides in history, from the mundane to the strange, for your contemplation. Unfortunately, there are all too many authors who have taken this route, a trend that many have remarked upon over the years. Though we by no means mean to romanticize suicide, which is often the product of a long term struggle with depression, it can’t be denied that the deaths of these figures are part of their legacy and have worked their way into our understanding of their work and their lives. Click through to see our list of the most famous author suicides, and raise a glass tonight to Sylvia Plath.
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