“Bitch is, of course, one of the oldest ways to insult a woman in English: an 18th-century slang dictionary called it ‘the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore.’ And yet, the word has evolved in unexpected ways, ending up with some strangely positive connotations.”
Category: words
Is There Yet Another Harper Lee Manuscript Stashed Somewhere?
Beginning in 1978, Lee visited Alexander City, Alabama to research the case(s) of Reverend Willie Maxwell, suspected in the death of five different family members but never convicted – and ultimately shot by another relative. Lee told Maxwell’s lawyer that she was working on a big In Cold Blood-style book and collected huge files of material; now the lawyer’s family wants to know what’s left of it, and where.
Tired Of The Grammar Police? Here’s Ammunition
“Instead of having some rule book of what is “correct” usage, they examine the evidence of how native and fluent nonnative speakers do in fact use the language. Whatever is in general use in a language (not any use, but general use) is for that reason grammatically correct.”
Louise Erdrich Wins Library of Congress Prize For American Fiction
“The prize, which will be awarded during the National Book Festival on Sept. 5, is given to writers with ‘unique, enduring voices’ whose work addresses the American experience. Past winners include John Grisham, Toni Morrison and E.L. Doctorow.”
Bill Watterson Speaks! “Calvin And Hobbes” Creator Gives Rare Interview
“Although I’m certainly glad cartoons are finally getting some respect as an art, I’m fairly ambivalent to see cartooning as a legitimate academic offering. If comics need to be deconstructed and explained, something is really wrong with them.”
When Book Titles Have Zero To Do With Book Contents (A Problem Of Fiction)
“There’s something to be said for allusive titles: they can be intriguing and draw you in. And obscure titles at least make a change from the current trend for The Woman Who Climbed out of Her Car and Mowed the Lawn.”
Wait, *Who* Wrote That Agatha Christie? Why ‘Novels Of Continuation’ Are Having A Moment
“We might be living in the second ‘golden age’ of television, but this is also arguably the first golden age of the continuation novel, which is arguably a less impressive development. It prompts various questions, such as: Is literary publishing eating itself?”
The Intense – And Rapidly Growing – World Of Fanfiction
“It’s only a matter of time before a writer that the literary-fiction crowd acknowledges as one of its own emerges from such fertile ground. In fact, given that most fic writers are pseudonymous, it’s quite possible that one already has and that the talent responsible for a first novel well reviewed by the New York Times is also tinkering with Sherlock ‘shipping.'”
The Success Problem (How It Gets In The Way Of Being Successful Again)
“Why not enjoy success? Why not accept that you are a genius, if people insistently tell you that you are? One way or another, from this point on it will be hard to achieve the same concentration, the same innocence, when you return to the empty page and the next stage in a life story that is now radically transformed.”
Marilynne Robinson, Roz Chast Win National Book Critics Circle Awards
Chast, a longtime New Yorker cartoonist, won the autobiography award for Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?“. Lila, the final book in Robinson’s Gilead trilogy, took the fiction prize; other winners included John Lahr (for his Tennessee Williams biography), the late critic Ellen Willis, poet Claudia Rankine, and historia of American slavery David Brion Davis.