#literary-icon

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Film
fromThe Atlantic
3 hours ago

Enough With the Vibesy Literary Remakes

Modern adaptations of classic literature often simplify complex themes, resulting in superficial interpretations that lack depth.
Writing
fromwww.theguardian.com
10 hours ago

Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt review life after Paul Auster

Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt shared a deep literary bond and a complex marriage lasting over 40 years, filled with love and creativity.
Cancer
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 days ago

After all the horrible things we've been through,' he said to me, if I die of cancer, it will make a bad story': Siri Hustvedt on losing Paul Auster

Grief after losing a loved one can distort time perception and create overwhelming emotional and physical challenges.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
4 days ago

The First Draft of Cultural History

Gossip serves as the rough draft of news, with Lena Dunham's memoir providing unique insights into Millennial art and culture.
Philosophy
fromOpen Culture
6 days ago

Leo Tolstoy Calls Shakespeare an 'Insignificant, Inartistic Writer.' Then George Orwell Fires Back

Leo Tolstoy's radical conversion to Christian anarchism led him to vehemently oppose patriarchal institutions and advocate for the Russian peasantry.
fromwww.nytimes.com
3 days ago

Classic and Contemporary Literature From France, Japan, India, the U.K. and Brazil

Classic France is a country of nuance with a love of conversation and freedom and an aversion to fanaticism. Contemporary Houellebecq describes France as a museum, where landscape turns into decor and where rural areas are emptying out.
Writing
fromArtnet News
1 week ago

The Philosopher Who Predicted Our Post-Literate Art Moment | Artnet News

Flusser believed that the transformation brought about by new media would reshape the world, leading to a consciousness defined by images rather than the written word.
Arts
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 week ago

Too hot to handle? Why it's time for straight male authors to rediscover sex

Straight male writers often avoid writing about sex, fearing it may seem exploitative or gratuitous, unlike their female counterparts.
#infinite-jest
fromwww.theguardian.com
3 weeks ago

Daunting, inspiring, comforting, terrifying: the writers who can make silence as eloquent as words

A vision lay before him: Fleet Street blanketed with snow, silent, empty, pure white, and, at the end of it, the huge and majestic form of Saint Paul's Cathedral. It was a spellbinding moment: the great thoroughfare temporarily devoid of carts and carriages, the cathedral looming blurrily out of the still-falling snowflakes a real-life snow globe.
London
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
2 weeks ago

The Feeling of Becoming Less and Less of a Person

The advent of the smartphone marked a significant shift in human perception and relationships, altering the human sensorium since June 2007.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 week ago

Ghostwriting Is Good, Actually

Ghostwriting, when done by humans, can provide valuable support to authors and help share unique perspectives.
fromThe Nation
1 week ago

The Worlds of Jamaica Kincaid

I find England ugly...I hate England; the weather is like a jail sentence...the food in England is like a jail sentence.
Books
Digital life
fromFast Company
4 weeks ago

Is AI killing the human voice in writing?

Predictive language technologies challenge individual expression by influencing how writers generate and complete their thoughts.
Writing
fromwww.theguardian.com
3 weeks ago

Transcription by Ben Lerner review a stunning exploration of technology and storytelling

The novel explores themes of touch, familial inheritance, and the complexities of communication through a narrative involving a final interview with a mentor.
#literature
fromThe Atlantic
2 weeks ago
Books

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 weeks ago

Unconventional Novels About Conventional People

Aging revolutionaries and conformists share parallel narratives of disillusionment and the loss of youthful dreams in recent literature.
Artificial intelligence
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

The Human Skill That Eludes AI

Generative AI has paradoxically declined in creative writing quality since GPT-2, despite advancing in technical capabilities, with current models producing formulaic, flawed prose despite access to centuries of literature.
Writing
fromThe Nation
3 weeks ago

The Enigma of Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein's complex writing style and innovative use of language significantly influenced 20th-century literature, despite ongoing ambivalence from readers.
Women
fromThe New Yorker
1 month ago

The Feminist Visionary Who Lost the Plot

Elizabeth Cady Stanton's experience of discrimination at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention catalyzed her feminist activism, though her sense of intellectual superiority later contributed to bigoted views.
#film-vs-literature
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 weeks ago

The Sci-Fi Novelist Who Disappeared for Decades

Cameron Reed's science fiction explores cognitive estrangement, revealing alien worlds that reflect and challenge our own societal norms and moral dilemmas.
Books
fromenglish.elpais.com
2 weeks ago

Frankenstein, Jane Eyre and Snow White with a gender-based perspective: The Madwoman in the Attic' and the beginning of feminist literary criticism

The new edition of 'La loca del desvan' revives feminist literary criticism, highlighting the relevance of women's voices in literature today.
Books
fromPsychology Today
3 weeks ago

Fiction Is Indispensable to Life's Journey

Fiction is essential for emotional connection, learning, and social cognition, allowing us to escape reality and engage deeply with narratives.
Europe politics
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

The Country That Made Its Own Canon

Sweden released a national culture canon, sparking controversy over national identity as immigration rises and the nationalist Sweden Democrats gain political influence.
fromThe Conversation
1 month ago

Today's obsession with authenticity isn't new - being true to yourself has troubled philosophers for centuries

All of us live in an age where we're bombarded by social media and artificial intelligence - when striving to be your authentic self becomes an increasingly difficult task. Yet, even if it has somehow become a common goal, it is unclear how many of us can truly define the "authenticity" that we say we are pursuing.
Philosophy
Music
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

Why music has become such a big part of the romance novel reading experience

Romance novel readers increasingly use pop music playlists to enhance their reading experiences, creating a community that bridges book fandom and music fandom, exemplified by Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights album.
fromPolygon
8 months ago

Time Flies when you're thinking about dying

So long as I manage to avoid lightbulbs or stay out of wine glasses, the buzzing will inevitably give way to silence. My wings will abruptly stop flapping and I'll careen towards the ground like an asteroid. I'll become a speck on a rug, a bit of debris absent-mindedly vacuumed up by someone who has no idea what adventures I've been on in the past minute.
Video games
Miscellaneous
fromenglish.elpais.com
1 month ago

Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Nobel Prize laureate in Literature: My Hungary is that of language, not of hussars'

László Krasznahorkai rejects symbolic interpretation of his work, insisting his literature contains no symbols, parables, or hidden meanings despite critical attempts to decode them.
#artistic-pride
Arts
fromwww.npr.org
1 month ago

Mundane, magic, maybe both a new book explores 'The Writer's Room'

Writer's rooms and homes serve as cultural spaces that inspire visitors seeking connection to literary legacies, though the experience varies between magical and disappointing depending on accessibility and personal connection.
Writing
fromBig Think
1 month ago

"If it sounds literary, it isn't": The deceptively simple rules behind good writing

Neal Allen and Anne Lamott co-authored Good Writing by combining Allen's 36 writing rules with Lamott's annotations, creating a collaborative guide where Allen explains rules and Lamott provides practical examples and alternative perspectives.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 month ago

Why some of us build entire worlds inside our heads and then feel homesick for places that never existed - Silicon Canals

Elaborate inner worlds built through imagination are common cognitive features that fulfill emotional needs, characterized by specific details and consistent logic that can persist for decades.
Music
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

From Bronte to Ballard, Orwell to Okri: the best songs inspired by literature ranked!

Numerous popular songs draw direct inspiration from literature, with artists adapting novels, authors, and literary imagery into lyrics, themes, and song concepts.
Film
fromwww.dw.com
2 months ago

An undying trend: How vampires hold a mirror to society

The vampire figure personifies societal anxieties and mirrors social and racial violence, sustaining enduring cultural relevance across myth, literature, and film.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
1 month ago

What Went Wrong When Susan Sontag Met Thomas Mann?

Susan Sontag recalled a disappointing 1947 meeting with Thomas Mann at age fourteen, experiencing profound disillusionment when the literary titan failed to match her idealized expectations of him.
Philosophy
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

Why AI Must Not Do Our Writing for Us

Relying on machines for writing deprives students of the cognitive, emotional, and exploratory benefits of composing and personal intellectual engagement.
Film
fromwww.dw.com
2 months ago

An undying trend: How vampires hold a mirror to society

Vampires in storytelling symbolize societal fears and reflect historical social and racial violence, as shown by a 1930s-set horror about community-targeted vampires.
Writing
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

Virginia Woolf and the Reclaiming of Attention

Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness technique demonstrates how attention shapes consciousness and remains relevant to contemporary struggles against digital distraction.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Plan to turn Irish borderlands into Unesco region of literature'

A literary heritage initiative aims to rebrand the Ireland-Northern Ireland border as a Unesco region of literature, creating nine guided routes through 11 counties associated with major writers like Yeats, Beckett, and Heaney.
fromMedium
1 month ago

Things that don't matter when you write

To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul. The concept I stick to - my core principle - is simple: I write in plain English, and only when I actually have something to say.
Writing
Writing
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

Literary Theory

Words carry multiple meanings; 'swallow' embodies both bird and ingestion, showing language's power to alter perception and emotional states.
Books
fromHarvard Gazette
1 month ago

That's a book? - Harvard Gazette

Italo Calvino used tarot card decks as a computational system to generate interconnected narratives, predating modern AI by decades and demonstrating how structured systems can create complex literary works.
#reading
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

A Biography Without 'The Boring Bits'

Sophia Stewart poses a choice that many biographers struggle with: "what to do with the boring bits."
Books
Writing
fromThe New Yorker
1 month ago

Yiyun Li on Stories That Happen Twice

Retrospective narrative reveals how stories gain completeness through the knowledge of future events, transforming present moments into layered reflections on fate and identity.
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

How Do You Write About the Inexplicable?

Rational skepticism coexists with a persistent tendency to personify evil and read coincidences as omens.
Books
fromThe Atlantic
1 month ago

When Did Literature Get Less Dirty?

Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound functioned as a response to the controversial reception of Portnoy's Complaint, with Roth's protagonist expressing regret over writing sexually explicit material that drew accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny.
Books
fromHarvard Gazette
2 months ago

The stories behind the books - Harvard Gazette

Harvard's library collection includes books that use layered images, movable elements, and raised type to create interactive, tactile, and accessible reading experiences.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror review roundup

Subsequently, runaway children turned the valley into a fortress, surviving on food they could catch or grow, with occasional forays into the towns below. Riley has heard the rumours, but it is only when she sees a green-clad boy or is it a girl? hovering outside her bedroom window offering directions on how to find Nowhere that she realises this might be her chance to escape and save her little brother from their sadistic guardian.
Books
#lionel-shriver
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

The Writer's Magic Trick

A writer is a kind of magician. Their job is to create living, three-dimensional people out of the ordinary stuff of ink and paper. This is no easy task, because readers can't literally hear, touch, or observe a character. Everything that defines a human being in real life-the physical space they occupy, or how they smell, feel, and sound-is stripped away, replaced by description. But authors have one major, mystical advantage: They can show you what's happening inside of someone's brain.
Books
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

What we're reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in February

Claire Baglin's 'On the Clock' uses narrow focus on fast-food work to reveal profound truths about contemporary alienation and precarity with compassion and emotional depth.
fromHarvard Gazette
1 month ago

Immersed in Toni Morrison's multitudes - Harvard Gazette

If you have to read and reread in order to put together what's happening, then you are a co-creator of that literary experience. She saw this as specifically important for Black literature. Her highest aspiration, as she put it, was to create something at the level of jazz, which she saw as the highest form of Black art.
Books
Books
fromThe New Yorker
2 months ago

A Debut Novel About the Quest for Eternal Youth

The boundary between responsible adult and dependent child has frayed as caregivers flail through midlife while youth confront a crumbling, dishonest world.
Books
fromMedium
2 months ago

How to start writing (like it's easy)

A profoundly immersive book can deeply alter readers and provoke self-doubt about one's own creative abilities.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Georgi Gospodinov: Jorge Luis Borges gave me an exhilarating sense of freedom'

Early reading fostered a lifelong devotion to books and writing, shaped by adventure, criminology, eroticism, Salinger, Borges, and Bulgarian poets.
Books
fromDefector
2 months ago

Fanfiction's Total Cultural Victory | Defector

Fifty Shades of Grey's transition from fanfiction to mainstream publishing transformed the industry, proving fanfiction-originated romances can be highly lucrative and culturally influential.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Ali Smith: Henry James had me running down the garden path shouting out loud'

Early exposure to Beatles labels, Charlotte's Web, and Liz Lochhead’s poetry sparked a lifelong love of reading and inspired a desire to write.
Books
fromenglish.elpais.com
2 months ago

The lost lessons of Jorge Luis Borges: His English and American literature classes

Recovered 1966 lectures by Jorge Luis Borges were published, revealing lost oral work and previously uncollected material through meticulous editorial recovery.
Books
fromThe Nation
1 month ago

Has Contemporary Fiction Ignored the Working Class?

Work's grip on life demands vigilance; allowing career to consume identity risks losing oneself entirely to labor's demands.
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