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Atlantic magazine unveils new list of great American novels on first day of New Orleans Book Festival
The No. 1 reason The Atlantic magazine wanted to overhaul the list of greatest American novels was simple, editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg said Thursday night: “To start a conversation.” Challenge accepted. In a sometimes serious, sometimes jocular discussion at the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University, festival co-founder Walter Isaacson took the bait, scoffing at…
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9 books by New England authors to read this spring
The ebb and flow from winter to spring is all about give and take. Mother Nature is giving us a little more daylight and sunshine, but could easily take back these 50-degree days to plunge us back into winter chills. New England authors are giving me spine-tingling thriller novels that make me grateful for my…
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11 Greatest Novels of All Time: Updated 2024 List
Choosing the best book ever is really about what each person likes. Some might look for stories with pretty words, real-life feelings, making a big splash in society, or quietly changing things. Here’s a peek at some books that have really won over people’s hearts and made a big difference in both the world of…
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More serialized novels, please.
March 14, 2024, 1:02pm Dave Eggers has a new novel coming out—sort of. McSweeney’s just announced The Forgetters, which is described as something which “will someday be a probably-overlong novel by Dave Eggers; when the whole thing will be finished is anyone’s guess. But in the meantime, we’re releasing standalone, short-story-sized portions of the book…
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The Atlantic’s List of The Great American Novels
The Atlantic just launched their list of the The Great American Novels. The list is the result of a project that looks at the most influential novels in America for the past 100 years (roughly from 1924-2023). The 136 novels on the list were chosen by The Atlantic’s editors, who were in conversation with scholars,…
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The Great American Novels
In 1868, a little-known writer by the name of John William DeForest proposed a new type of literature, a collective artistic project for a nation just emerging from an existential conflict: a work of fiction that accomplished “the task of painting the American soul.” It would be called the Great American Novel, and no one…
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What Is Your Favorite Funny Novel? Tell Us.
The staff book critics of The New York Times selected 22 of their favorite comic novels in English since “Catch-22.” What would top your list? A chorus of doomsayers say that comedy is dead, a casualty of the thought police. Others counter that our idea of what’s funny is simply changing with the times, getting…
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22 of the Funniest Novels Since ‘Catch-22’
When it comes to fiction, humor is serious business. If tragedy appeals to the emotions, wit appeals to the mind. “You have to know where the funny is,” the writer Sheila Heti says, “and if you know where the funny is, you know everything.” Humor is a bulwark against complacency and conformity, mediocrity and predictability.…
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Kate Zambreno Takes Issue With What Counts as ‘Literature’
What books are on your night stand? A bit of a brag, but I just got the Annie Ernaux box set from Seven Stories. I’m teaching all 13 books for a graduate seminar on Ernaux this semester, and there were a few I didn’t have. It’s still wrapped in plastic — the combination of open…
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International Booker Prize 2024: 13 Books Long-Listed For The Prestigious Literary Award
International Booker Prize 2024: 13 Books Long-Listed For The Prestigious Literary Award (Image Credit: Instagram) The International Booker Prize is a prestigious award given each year to the best fiction book translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. This award started in 2005 to celebrate international literature and the skill of translating…