Nothing New Under The Sun: The Origins of 5 Common Literary Allusions

Column by Taylor Houston March 27, 2013 3 comments
In:

Nothing New Under The Sun: The Origins of 5 Common Literary Allusions

image/jpeg iconunder-the-sun.jpg

Allusions

Do you ever get the feeling that you’ve read something before? Well, you have—maybe even hundreds or thousands of times. Writers are, at best, great mimics, and, at worst, sneaky thieves. They love to steal the words of the writers who have come before them. Did I say steal? I meant allude to the words of their fore-authors.  According to An Introduction to Poetry, 9th Edition, an allusion is

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.

Three Books About...The Road

Column by Cath Murphy March 26, 2013 1 comment
In:

Three Books About...The Road

image/jpeg iconthe-road.jpg

Books can be about anything – elephants, antimacassars, milk cartons – but generally they are not. Books tend to cluster around certain subjects, old favorites cropping up time and time again, like regulars at a bar. But unlike barflies, who all seem to have learned the same hard luck story by rote, writers (good writers) can take the same base material and make it into something entirely original.

Contrast three writers on the same subject and what you end up with is not just interesting—what you end up with is inspiration.

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.

Quirky Works in Indie Publishing

Column by Erik Wecks March 26, 2013
In:

Quirky Works in Indie Publishing

image/jpeg iconwool.jpg

Last Saturday I had the privilege of spending the afternoon with some of my favorite authors, all of them indie published. Will Hertling is the author of Avogadro Corporation, a fabulous story about an AI that starts out as an email search algorithm, similar to those currently used by Google. Ernie Lindsey is the author of several great works of fiction, including the best selling Sara's Game, and my personal favorite Going Shogun, which is a future dystopian comedy a la Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.

10 Questions with Phoebe Gloeckner

Interview by Stephanie Bonjack March 25, 2013
In:

10 Questions with Phoebe Gloeckner

image/jpeg iconphoebe-gloeckner.jpg

In his introduction to A Child's Life and Other Stories, R. Crumb describes Phoebe Gloeckner as looking at the world with penetrating intensity, and I can't imagine a better description. Her major works, A Child's Life and Other Stories and The Diary of a Teenage Girl, capture excruciating and pivotal adolescent moments through the filter of Gloeckner's stunning comic illustrations. Her stories are heart-wrenching and compelling.

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.

The 10 Books That Taught Me Everything I Know About Sex

Column by Joshua Chaplinsky March 22, 2013 19 comments
In:

The 10 Books That Taught Me Everything I Know About Sex

image/jpeg icon10-books-about-sex.jpg

This column contains language of a frank and sexual nature. You have been warned.

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.

Book vs. Film: A Clockwork Orange

Column by Meredith Borders March 22, 2013 24 comments
In:

Book vs. Film: A Clockwork Orange

image/jpeg iconclockwork-orange-book-vs-film.jpg

Anthony Burgess’ dismissal of the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of his novel A Clockwork Orange is one for the ages. It wasn’t the last time one of Kubrick’s notoriously devastating films pissed off the author of the source material – Stephen King once said that The Shining is the only one of his book adaptations he can remember hating – but Burgess’ ire is certainly the most memorable, renouncing his own book after having seen the movie it spawned:

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.

Unprintable: The LitReactor Podcast Episode 9 - Reading Habits

Podcast by Rob Hart March 21, 2013
In:

Unprintable: The LitReactor Podcast Episode 9 - Reading Habits

Every month, Unprintable will take an irreverent look at books, the publishing industry, reading, writing, and more; featuring the know-it-all geekery of LitReactor columnist Cath Murphy, Class Director Rob W. Hart, and Managing Editor Joshua Chaplinsky.

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.

LURID: Season Of The Witch

Column by Karina Wilson March 21, 2013
In:

LURID: Season Of The Witch

image/jpeg iconlurid-witches.jpg

LURID: vivid in shocking detail; sensational, horrible in savagery or violence, or, a guide to the merits of the kind of Bad Books you never want your co-workers to know you're reading.

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.

High Priest of the Godless: A Jim Thompson Primer

Column by Craig Clevenger March 20, 2013 6 comments
In:

High Priest of the Godless: A Jim Thompson Primer

image/jpeg iconjim-thompson-primer.jpg

Before there was film noir, there was the roman noir, the dark novel. What Americans of the mid-twentieth century called pulp fiction was simply the contemporary incarnation of the dime novel or penny dreadful of the previous century. The lurid stories behind the lurid covers were considered lowbrow trash and indeed, many of them aspired to be nothing but the same. But one man’s trash is another man’s dark worldview, as evinced by the French embrace of these tales from the godless gutter of the New World.

To leave a comment Login with Facebook or create a free account.