You Gotta Read This

·        A Short History of the Short Story ("The short story is dead. Long live the short story." - Julia Kamysz Lane in Book.)

·       How to Become a Writer Or, Have You Earned This Cliche?  - Lorrie Moore on the impossible profession.

·       I've Got a Little List –- Erica Jong's wonderful response (from The Nation) to the Modern Library's 1998 list of the 100 best English-language novels, including her own list of important books by women authors. See also "Best Lists," below, for more on the popular indoor sport of telling people what to read.

·       The Dumb-Down by Todd Gitlin, The Nation, 1997. (As publishers have become farm teams where "product" is worked up for the "synergistic" use of the parent entertainment conglomerates, one frequently hears the charge that books have been dumbed down....")

 

For when you need to take writing a skosh less seriously

 

·                     The Simpsons Archive: Blackboard Openings. If you don't keep up with your writing, this could happen to you.
      • The Company We Keep: Writers and Mental Illness ("The message to be found here was best stated by R.D. Laing, who pointed out that 'Madness need not all be breakdown - it may also be breakthrough.'") 
      • "Best Lists" –- The humor section may not seem the right place for these "100 Best" lists that crop up from time to time (and which got a shot in the arm after the 1998 Modern Library list), but believe me, this is right where they belong.

 

·         The Random House/Modern Library's 100 Best Novels

·         The 100 Best Novels - The Radcliffe List

·         Madison Public Library's Top 100 Novels

·         WomanEbooks.com's 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century

·         Feminista's Response to the Random House/Modern Library List plus their 100 Great 20th Century English-language Works of Fiction by Women

·         The 100 Best Gay Novels

·         The 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels (someone else's idea)

·         The 100 Best Fantasy Novels

·         The 101 Best Graphic Novels

·         Montana State University's 100 Best Books

·         iVillage.com's Annual Fiction 100 (here's where all those books by Stephen King and Jean Auel are hiding)

·         The National Review's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of the Century


 

 

 

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