This week, the American Library Association announced its annual list of “challenged books.” The report is meant to offer insight on the literature that might inspire an otherwise perfectly adjusted youth to forget to tie his shoes, or eat an unhealthy lunch, or . . . set an entire school [...]
It’s no surprise that Rainbow Rowell chose the 1980s as the setting for Eleanor & Park, her first YA novel. After all, the 1980s were arguably the Golden Age of the teen movie (see The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Say Anything, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Footloose), and Rowell’s [...]
The brilliant and funny Lauren Graham wrote a novel! It’s called Someday, Someday, Maybe, and it comes out on April 30. I asked Ms. Graham about her writing habits, her characters, and her New York experience. Spoiler alert: like every other human, she wastes a lot of time on the [...]
Ever since I was the dorky little girl who spent more time with Nancy Drew than with some family members, I’ve worn my bookworm ways as a badge of pride. But even though I had a New York City library card before I had an apartment, I can’t hide the [...]
Shortly after his one-year stint as the dopey Nick Andopolis on Judd Apatow’s famously cancelled series Freaks and Geeks, Jason Segel wrote a movie script that was never produced. Twelve years, a blockbuster movie, and a hit sitcom series later, the star has adapted that forgotten script into a series of [...]
Most obituaries are about as warm as a cover letter. Maybe every obit-writer feels she has to be sober and staid out of respect for the dead, but the result is that a complex life of loving, striving, petty thieving, and instagramming is reduced to a bland list. Not in [...]
Editor’s note: Joel is reading his way through the finalists for the 2012 Nebula Award for best sci-fi/fantasy novel. Read his introduction here. Reimaginings of classics can be risky. Stick too close to the original and your story feels tired, or suffers from comparison to a beloved book. Stray too [...]
Just because a novel is on a national bestseller list—or sells hundreds of thousands of copies—doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. The reverse is also true, especially of genre fiction, fringy fiction—a lot of the good stuff comes and goes virtually unnoticed. Take vampire fiction, for example.
He’s won the World Fantasy Award, the British Science-Fiction Society Award, and other awards with the word “fantasy” in them. But if you aren’t a loyal reader of those kinds of books, you might not know who he is. But you really should!
