Is it possible to rank the world's best literature? Well, no, and we're certainly not going to try. Although in 2007, one publication did. Now we ask, did it get it right? The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books is a collection of "Top Ten" lists provided by some of the world's most respected authors--125…
Category: Books
World Class: Snapshots of Classrooms From Around the Globe
The ever-curious Brain Pickings yesterday shed light on a fascinating project, "Classroom Portraits." Since 2004, photographer Julian Germain has captured images of classrooms the world over, progressing from his small corner of North East England to include schools from North and South America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Collected in a new book, Germain's…
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New-Old Scribbles from Old, Old Authors
A curious trend seems to be spreading across the literary world whereby deceased authors' previously unseen scribblings are being brought into the light. First we had Hemingway's 47 alternate endings to A Farewell to Arms in print, then an uncovered and previously rejected short story by F.Scott Fitzgerald was published by The New Yorker. And this…
Shelley Jackson’s Skin Project: A Living Novella
Shelley Jackson has always been an author to push the boundaries of genre and form. In the nineties, she broke ground as one of the first writers to experiment with hyperfiction, reaping high praise for "Patchwork Girl", a hypertext, Borgesian spin on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. But I recently came across a project of hers that is even more…
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Judging a Book By Its Cover
A six year-old judges classic novels solely on their covers. At a loss as to how to explain the premise of more than a dozen classic works to her kindergarten-aged daughter, one blogger mom decided to find out how they might appear to the mind of a small child. The results will amuse and surprise…
How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read
Or, "Why It's Okay to Use eNotes' Study Guides" Modern literatis everywhere are faced with a crippling predicament: every month of the year, publishing houses churn out one bestseller after another, each one peaking our interest more than the last. And true booklovers, or at least those who want to be considered such, are expected…
Neil Gaiman to Write New Sandman Series
In the first piece of exciting literary news to come out of Comic-Con today, Neil Gaiman has announced that for the first time in ten years he will return to write a new release of his acclaimed graphic novel series The Sandman.
In Gaiman's video announcement above, aired before a stunned crowd at…
Hemingway’s Last Farewell
"But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain." - Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, Chapter 41…