American Literature

Can The Great American Novel Exist?

Kevin Hayes | Posted 05.15.2012

Read More: Book News, American Novels, Great American Author, Great American Novelist, Great American Novel, American Literature, American Authors, Great American Novel Author, Books News
Kevin Hayes

Can the phrase "Great American Novel" only be applied to realistic novels that attempt to capture the mainstream American experience? Or can it be applied to other novels that are more diverse in terms of either subject matter or literary approach?

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Lucas Kavner

'Moby Dick' Gets A Makeover. On Every Single Page.

HuffingtonPost.com | Lucas Kavner | Posted 09.11.2011

Read More: Literature, Moby Dick, Illustrators, Illustrated Books, Artists and Illustrators, Matt Kish, Matt Kish Blog, Herman Melville, Whales, One Drawing for Every Page, Classic Books, Blog, Illustrations, American Literature, Librarians, Culture News

While other high school freshmen were playing video games or going to baseball practice, Matt Kish was reading the unabridged edition of "Moby Dick" i...

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How Comics Became Literature for Adults

Douglas Wolk | Posted 08.27.2011

Read More: Book Publishing, John Carter of Mars, John Carter, Comic Books, Graphic Novels, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Censorship, Literature, American Literature, Censor, Comics Code Authority, Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Persepolis, American Splendor, Crime Does Not Pay, Will Eisner, Books News
Douglas Wolk

Thanks to accidents of economics, flashes of artistic inspiration, and flukes of both government and culture, comics have really "grown up."

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What Work Could Gilded Age Women Do?

Lev Raphael | Posted 08.14.2011

Read More: Edith Wharton, Women's Rights, The House of Mirth, New York City, Employment, New York Times, Jobs, Women in Business, Women's Work, Women Entrepeneurs, The Gilded Age, American Novels, Novels, American Literature, Women News
Lev Raphael

Remember Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth? Remember how faded socialite Lily Bart drops down the social ladder, from unpaid secretary for her wealt...

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Rebuilding Edith Wharton's House of Mirth

Lev Raphael | Posted 08.02.2011

Read More: Edith Wharton, Book News, Tom Wolfe, Publishing, The House of Mirth, Books, American Eve, Conspicuous Consumption, Novels, Gilded Age, Bonfire of the Vanities, New York, Robber Barons, American Literature, Wall Street, Books News
Lev Raphael

Certain books change your life, and Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth changed mine. The novel's brilliance blew me away in college, deepening my desi...

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On In(form)ality: Creative Writing Pedagogy in the Youtube Generation

Ming Holden | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: University, Literature, Literary Culture, Writing, Pedagogy, Literary Fiction, American Literature, Creative Writing, Culture, Youtube, Books News
Ming Holden

One thing that renders me reluctant to begin writing about the "business" of writing and the teaching of writing is the sneaking suspicion that there are things I lack that "real writers" should have in order to teach.

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Biography: The Falsest Art?

Joe Woodward | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, Dorothy Parker, Writing, Literary Biography, Archives, William Faulkner, American Literature, Writing a Novel, Biography, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Books News
Joe Woodward

I've come to believe that what makes the biography of a writer crackle and pop is knowing as many lies as truths -- the lies they told to others, the lies others told of them, and, most importantly, the lies they told themselves.

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No Time?

The Guardian | John Crace | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, Nabokov, Rushdie, Midnight's Children, Aldous Huxley, Camus, Swann's Way, Classic Books, Brideshead Revisted, Brave New World, The Age of Innocence, Classic Literature, Huxley, Proust, American Literature, Lolita, Salman Rushdie, Books News

Lolita. Light of my life. Lo. Li. Ta Very Much. If you wonder where my peculiar interests came from, I should have to say it started when I was 13 wit...

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Big Woman, Small Town: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Ilana Teitelbaum | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Short Stories, Olive Kitteridge, Maine, Literary Fiction, Fiction, Novels, American Literature, Elizabeth Strout, America, Pulitzer Prize, Books News
Ilana Teitelbaum

In her inability to feel content with her life, with the "blackness" that accompanies her through her household tasks and is often expressed through anger and even cruelty, Olive seems, in a way, to be too big for the town that has always been her home.

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William Faulkner Talks Online, 50 Years Later

NPR | Morning Edition | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Online Lectures, Books, Npr, Lectures, American Literature, University of Virginia, Reading, William Faulkner, Books News

In the late 1950s, English students at the University of Virginia got the opportunity that most American literature scholars would kill for -- to spea...

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Anticipating Mark Twain's Never Before Seen Autobiography

Steve Courtney | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: American Literature, Mark Twain House, Mark Twain, Books, Books News
Steve Courtney

We're finally getting to read Mark Twain's blog. It's a chance to hear the old man's voice as he talks to us directly, at his own pace, telling us things in the order he wants to tell us things.

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Why Memoir?

Peter Birkenhead | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, American Literature, Memory, Memoir, Creative Non-Fiction, Memoirs, Non-Fiction, Books, Fiction, Books News
Peter Birkenhead

A lot of us are taught about fear, in one way or another, by mountains or drugs or fathers, but it's the fear, not the father, we ultimately battle with.

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Rejecting the Publishing Ghetto

Leonce Gaiter | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, African-American, African-American Literature, Book Publishing, Publishing, Publishers Weekly, Books, Black Literature, American Literature, Media News
Leonce Gaiter

Today, there is a publishing ghetto. Mainstream white-owned houses have black imprints. Here, they publish books by, for and about black people.

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Age, Writing and Workshops

Marcia DeSanctis | Posted 11.17.2011

Read More: Literature, Tin House Books, Portland Oregon, American Literature, Media, Tin House, Career Change, Oregon, Writing Tips, The Balanced Life, Literary Culture, Fiction, Poetry, Healthy Living News
Marcia DeSanctis

Any idea that I was still a young woman was temporarily dispelled the first few days of the annual Tin House Writers Conference at Reed College in Portland Oregon.

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Define "Urban Lit" ...

Charles D. Ellison | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, Urban Policy, Ghettos, Ghetto, American Literature, Black, Reading, African Americans, Urban, Style News
Charles D. Ellison

Rage against the Mullah machine fumes in Iran, economy is wrecked, and health care reform is a rubbery roast of ripped tire on the road to political h...

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Tell The Truth: You're a Real Storyteller

Richard Laermer | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, Limerick, Books, Laermer.com, American Literature, Pulitzer Prize, Angela's Ashes, Frank Mccourt, Autobiograhies, Ireland, Prospective Customer Acquisition, Customers, Reading, Truth Commission, Media News
Richard Laermer

The success of Angela's Ashes taught us that the most popular stories that seem to resonate with readers and spur new and positive changes are often the true ones.

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Holden Caulfield at 60? No Way, Says J. D. Salinger

David Finkle | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Jennifer Schuessler, J. D. California, New York Time Sunday Week in Review, James M. Cain, 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, Mildred Pierce, Jane Austen, Entertainment, Literary Appropriation, Publishing Phenomenon, J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, American Literature, Pride and Prejudice, Fredrik Colting, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Holden Caulfield, Media News
David Finkle

Salinger might be better off taking the view of James M. Cain, the author of several hot 1940s chart items. Cain, asked once how he felt about what Hollywood had done to his books, said, "Hollywood hasn't done anything to my books. There they all are, up on the shelf."

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Over a Cheever, Under a Cheever

David Finkle | Posted 11.17.2011

Read More: "Oh What a Paradise It Seems, The New Yorker, Burt Lancaster, Blake Bailey, Cheever: A Life, American Literature, The Swimmer, John Cheever, Falconer, Healthy Living News
David Finkle

I cried when I found out that John Cheever died in 1982. And now with few readers, the paradise that is Cheever's writing is at risk of being a lost paradise.

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John Updike Wins Bad Sex Prize

AP | JILL LAWLESS | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: The Wire, England, Books, Sex, Bad Sex, American Literature, John Updike, John Updike Bad Sex, Updike Bad Sex, Media News

LONDON — It's not quite the Nobel Prize, but John Updike has a new literary accolade: laureate of bad sex. Updike, who has a long and graphic h...

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Serena: This Fall's Most Dangerous Novel

Jeff Biggers | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Wall Street Crash, Appalachia, Environmental Movement, Wall Street Crisis, Great American Novel, Novels, American Literature, Logging, Green Living, Thomas Wolfe, Ron Rash, Sarah Palin, North Carolina, Timber, Fiction, Toni Morrison, Dorothy Allison, Media News
Jeff Biggers

As unforgettable as a haunting mountain ballad, Serena unfolds like a brilliantly conceived cautionary tale and mediation on the dark corners of unbridled lust to profit at any cost.

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Nobel Prize - Is There an American Eligible?

Rick Ayers | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: American Literature, Nobel Prize, Literature, Horace Engdahl, European Literature, Swedish Academy, Europe, Media News
Rick Ayers

The comments of the Swedish Academy secretary suggesting that an American is unlikely to win the Nobel Prize in Literature this week have provoked great patriotic upswellings.

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Nobel Literature Chief Bashes American Literature

AP | MALIN RISING and HILLEL ITALIE | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Nobel Prize, American Literature, Horace Engdahl, Nobel Prize Literature, Harold Pinter, Media News

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United State...

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