literature

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Author: Arsenic Poisoning Killed Jane Austen

She may have gotten it as medicine

(Newser) - A crime writer poring over Jane Austen's letters thinks she knows what killed the author at age 41: arsenic poisoning. Lindsay Ashford sees telltale hints in Austen's own words, written just months before she died, including this line: "I am considerably better now and am recovering my...

How Charles Dickens Explains the 21st Century

 Do Yourself a 
 Favor: Read 
 Dickens 
OPINION
Nov 7, 2011 1:45 PM CST

Do Yourself a Favor: Read Dickens

As he nears 200, the novelist is more relevant than ever: Michael Levenson

(Newser) - Charles Dickens wrote in the 19th century, but at nearly 200 years old, he’s an expert on the 21st century as well. "For the mid-Victorians, government intervention was unthinkable, the market was king, only private philanthropy was tolerated," writes Michael Levenson for Slate . In other words, to...

Man Booker Prize Goes to Julian Barnes

'The Sense of an Ending' author once called prize 'posh bingo'

(Newser) - Julian Barnes once described the Man Booker Prize as “posh bingo,” but he won that game of bingo this week. Barnes won the 2011 prize for his 150-page novella, The Sense of an Ending, in a decision that took the judges just 31 minutes to reach, the Telegraph...

Scientists Back Up Frankenstein Moon Tale

Author Shelley could have been inspired by moonlight, as she said

(Newser) - Literary critics have long doubted Mary Shelley's claim that the idea for Frankenstein came to her one night in a vision of sorts, when she woke up and saw moonlight streaming through her shutters. But now researchers have proven that Shelley was telling the truth—or at least possibly...

Gabriel García Márquez Novel Spurs Rebels in Iran

'News of a Kidnapping' selling out after Mousavi comment

(Newser) - Want to know what it’s like to be an Iranian opposition leader under house arrest? Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s News of a Kidnapping. Ever since Mir Hossein Mousavi told his daughters the Colombian novel describes “my situation in captivity,” it’s been flying off the shelves...

BookLamp: Introducing Pandora for Books

 Introducing 
 'Pandora 
 for Books' 
in case you missed it
Aug 20, 2011 6:38 AM CDT

Introducing 'Pandora for Books'

BookLamp aims to change the way you get book recommendations

(Newser) - Need to find a new book to read? Allow us to introduce you to BookLamp , a project Mashable calls "Pandora for books." BookLamp is a recommendation engine launching today that uses the actual content of a book you like in order to recommend other books you might also...

Harry Potter's Real Magic Was on Way We Read

More than a popular book, Potter transformed literature, says critic

(Newser) - With the release of the eighth and final movie in the Harry Potter franchise, stories about the famous young wizard may be over, but the series' legacy—both cultural and literary—will live on, writes John Granger in the Washington Post . "[JK] Rowling transformed our idea of what stories...

VS Naipaul: No Woman Can Write Like I Can

Jane Austen's just too 'sentimental'

(Newser) - VS Naipaul might be one of the great writers of the 20th century, but he appears also to be a straight-up literary sexist, notes Gawker , which picks up on an interview he gave to the Guardian . In it, Naipaul says that no woman could write as well as he can;...

Philip Roth Wins Man Booker International Prize
Philip Roth Wins Man Booker Prize
UPDATED
May 18, 2011 9:38 AM CDT

Philip Roth Wins Man Booker Prize

...but one member of the 3-person judging panel quits in protest

(Newser) - Philip Roth, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author of the 1960s cultural touchstone Portnoy's Complaint and more than two dozen other novels, was named today as the winner of the Man Booker International Prize for fiction. Roth beat 12 other short-listed authors—including Britain's John le Carre, Australia's...

Uncensored, Gay Dorian Gray Finally Published

Manuscript was altered to make it less overtly homoerotic

(Newser) - You’ve never read The Picture of Dorian Gray—at least not as Oscar Wilde intended it. The uncensored original manuscript is about to be published for the first time, more than 120 years after the classic’s initial release. Before the book’s original serialized publication in Lippincott’s ...

Plot Rumors Leak on Fourth Stieg Larsson Novel

But much uncertainty remains on whether novel will see the light of day

(Newser) - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo kicked off a trilogy of international bestsellers—and though author Stieg Larsson died in 2004, rumors of another novel’s existence are gaining traction. Plot details have emerged, but the book’s fate remains murky as Larsson’s family and his former girlfriend battle...

The New Literary Celebrity: Mark Twain Editors

Volume one of his autobiography was a hit ... and now the pressure is on

(Newser) - When Harriet Elinor Smith was recognized by a fellow BART passenger who had seen her on TV, she was shocked, to say the least. After all, Smith spends the majority of her time not rocking the airwaves, but holed up in a UC Berkeley office, surrounded by centuries-old documents. She's...

Bristol Palin Going Rogue, Writing Book

304 pages of what, exactly?

(Newser) - It might be something like War & Peace or The Call of the Wild, except with more dancing and belated abstinence, but a new literary Wasillan has gone rogue. Amazon has a pre-order page for a 304-page Bristol Palin memoir, set to be released in September by HarperCollins. Gawker 's...

Russia Ignores Tolstoy Centennial
Russia Ignores
Tolstoy Centennial
Jan 8, 2011 12:14 PM CST

Russia Ignores Tolstoy Centennial

Literary giant saddled with controversy 100 years on

(Newser) - On the 100th anniversary of his death, one of the world’s most celebrated authors hardly got a nod from his home country. Leo Tolstoy died Nov. 20, 1910, having been excommunicated a decade earlier by the Russian Orthodox Church. For decades, the Soviets saluted him (ignoring his Pacifism and...

Best Books of 2010, Chosen by Authors

Dave Eggers, Tao Lin, and more offer their picks

(Newser) - Who better to ask for book suggestions than an author? Nineteen of them share their favorites of 2010 with Salon :
  • Dave Eggers: The collection Beirut39: New Writing From the Arab World is "a really necessary undertaking" highlighting the "kind of renaissance taking place ... among young Arab writers."
...

Let's Celebrate Sex in Literature
Let's Celebrate Sex in Literature
OPINION
Nov 30, 2010 2:43 PM CST

Let's Celebrate Sex in Literature

Why the 'Bad Sex in Fiction Award' is a prudish disgrace

(Newser) - Every year the Literary Review of Britain hands out its Bad Sex in Fiction Award, and every year it draws loads of press and snarky giggles at the expense of big-name nominees (who have included Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, and, this year, Jonathan Franzen). Well, Laura Miller of Salon is...

15 Books That Will Never Hit Theaters

Thomas Pynchon's 'Gravity's Rainbow'? Not likely

(Newser) - The Great Gatsby is about to get the celluloid treatment again . And while we can only hope that Baz Luhrmann does it justice, a great book does not automatically equal a great film. (The Scarlett Letter much?) The Huffington Post lists 15 novels that it considers "unfilmable":
  1. Pale Fire,
...

Did This Book Inspire Real-Life Murder?

Lead character based on man who later killed his mother

(Newser) - A Florida man confessed to killing his mother in the same fashion as a recently published novel describes: by beating her, cutting her open, and removing her inner organs. And the author of the novel admits that he based his main character partially on his friend, Beau Bruneau, 29—the...

Jane Austen's Style? Not Actually Jane Austen's

An editor was likely the one to polish her prose, says professor

(Newser) - Jane Austen is known as a “perfect stylist,” but those perfectly crafted sentences may not actually be hers. After studying 1,100 pages of Austen’s handwritten, unpublished manuscripts, an Oxford professor concluded that “the polished punctuation and epigrammatic style … is simply not there,” she...

'Jewish Jane Austen' Wins Booker Prize

Howard Jacobson's comic novel is 'profound,' 'wise'

(Newser) - The writer who once called the Man Booker Prize an "absolute abomination" was last night awarded the prize for his 11th novel, The Finkler Question. Howard Jacobson, who calls himself "the Jewish Jane Austen," was “truly flabbergasted” by the honor, reports the Telegraph . “I was...

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