Posts tagged with essays
The Queen 2.0
I'm so pleased to see this has been expanded (although the original article was not exactly a quick read): according to The New York Times, Josh Levin has fleshed out his article...
It just looks so juvenile.
LitHub recently posted J. Courtney Sullivan's lovely tribute to Anne of Green Gables: "Anne of Green Gables: Patron Saint of Girls Who Ask Too Many Questions". I'm not too sure about the "saint" part (one of the character's charms is how far she is from saintly), but...
We Are Never Meeting In Real Life, by Samantha Irby
I have never understood why people buy crappy stuff to read on airplanes. I need something great to read on a plane—a book instantly absorbing enough to distract me from the many, many things that suck about flying. A People article about Chris Pratt is not going to cut it, so I was delighted to run across an A+ plane book recommendation for this upcoming holiday season: Samantha Irby's essay collection We Are Never Meeting in Real Life...
Weekly Book Giveaway: We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samantha Irby
This week's Book Giveaway is We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, a collection of essays by Samantha Irby (best known as the author of the "bitches gotta eat" blog.) The book is a little less stream-of-consciousness than her online writing—and all the font is the same color—but just as awesome. A full review will follow shortly...
Persuasion = The Shallows
There's a mildly amusing essay over on the Guardian website that compares Jane Austen's Persuasion to a kung-fu movie. I think the analogy is a stretch (if you're talking about the characters being hemmed in and surrounded by potential dangers, why stop at kung-fu films? There are lots of horror films that play up claustrophobia and danger. Why not a shark movie?), but...
Ink has been spilled
There are approximately one million solid think pieces being written right now about the Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, but these two particularly caught my attention...
Unexpected bedfellows
Sports Illustrated's The Cauldron has posted an essay by Erin Finnegan about the intersection between sports stories and romance novels. I'm not sure I buy all of the author's arguments (I think the combination of wealth, fitness, and celebrity has a lot to do with the appeal of sports-star romance heroes), but...
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
In 2011, actress and comedian Mindy Kaling released a collection of essays called Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). Her book is 242 pages of the easiest reading on the planet: short, witty, ridiculously charming essays on everything from Kaling's weird affection for diet plans to her career goals to her ideal level of fame...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
This week's Book Giveaway is Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, a collection of comedic essays about everything from Kaling's childhood to her unique path to stardom (which apparently involved writing and starring in a play based on Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's friendship)...
Sure...
I was interested in—although not 100% convinced by—Suki Kim's essay "The Reluctant Memoirist" in New Republic. Kim is the author of Without You, There Is No Us: My Time With the Sons of North Korea’s Elite, a nonfiction account of Kim's time spent teaching ESL at an evangelical university in Pyongyang. While Kim viewed her work as investigative journalism, her publisher...
Sorry, try again.
Wow, this is the second time in less than a month that I am left rolling my eyes over a respected English professor's opinions about Jane Austen. (Note: Few things make me happier than hate-reading subpar Austen criticism...
My visits to Anthropologie usually spark irritation.
A few weeks ago, the New Yorker published an account of shopping with organization expert Marie Kondo, creator of the KonMari method and author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The essay...
A tribute to Ramona (and her parents)
Stephanie Lucianovic wrote a really lovely essay for Avidly about the experience of reading Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby books as both a child and an adult. I haven't re-read these books as a grown-up (and even as a kid, I was more into Harriet the Spy and The Phantom Tollbooth), but...