June 17, 2022, 12:36pm Honestly, I cannot believe I have not done this list yet because I (an adult) think about children’s books a lot, despite not having kids or really knowing any. (The pandemic hit before the majority of my colleagues procreated, so I have not properly bonded with their offspring at staff picnics;
Literature
What are some of the best, and best-known, short stories that feature animals? Many classic stories feature other species in prominent roles, whether it’s talking cats, dogs telling us their life stories, or primates giving academic reports at a conference (yes, really). Below, we select and introduce ten of the most iconic and famous stories
June 17, 2022, 9:53am A website called CatholicVote is telling its readers to hide books in library displays that have anything to do with the lives of queer people or people of color. This month, of course, the focus of their fragile and bigoted worldview is LGBQT+ visibility. Here’s a sample of their marching orders:
June 16, 2022, 12:08pm Finally, after months of waiting, we have footage Blonde—the hotly-anticipated Netflix movie adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ mammoth work of historical bio-fiction. [embedded content] Helmed by darkly-cerebral Australian director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James, Mindhunter), the buzz around Blonde has been building around for a while, partly because of Ana
‘Regret’ is a short story by the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904). Chopin wrote ‘Regret’ in September 1894 and it originally appeared in Century magazine the following year, before being reprinted in her 1897 collection A Night in Acadie. This collection met with some hostile reviews, with one critic objecting to the ‘unnecessary coarseness’ of
June 16, 2022, 11:16am Vladimir Nabokov is a well-documented complainer. He’s one of the few writers I think would have been good at Twitter (sorry to almost everyone else, living or dead). Actually, he would have delegated it to Véra, who would have gotten some sort of Netflix deal out of it, probably. In any
As the Danish physicist Niels Bohr probably never said, ‘predictions are hard, especially about the future.’ And although the job of authors of science fiction and speculative fiction isn’t to make accurate predictions about what our future lives might look like, but to entertain us by tapping into current concerns, fears, dreams, and ambitions for
June 14, 2022, 1:26pm The Southern Poverty Law Center is reporting that Hatewatch has identified the principals behind Antelope Hill, a far right publisher founded in 2020 that specializes in white nationalist, fascist, Nazi publications. With a catalog ranging from newly translated Nazi-era texts to contemporary white nationalist writing, Antelope Hill has been “successful” in
‘Down at the Dinghy’ is a short story by J. D. Salinger, originally published in 1949. As in some of Salinger’s other stories, notably ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’, ‘Down at the Dinghy’ involves an adult speaking to a child. However, in this case the theme of the story – which remains largely in the
June 14, 2022, 10:41am About four months ago, I had a baby. Certainly this will not be the first time you hear that the experience of becoming a parent can come with a profound erosion of self, particularly if you’re the mother. But the weirdest part of that erosion for me has been my absolute
June 13, 2022, 3:17pm Today, Penguin Press released a book trailer (yes, they still exist!) for Ottessa Moshfegh’s much anticipated upcoming novel, Lapvona, which follows a deformed boy living in a depraved and corrupt medieval village. On the other hand, the trailer, directed by Matthew Lessner, is like a ’90s infomercial for enlightenment created by
Surely the most famous horse in all of classical myth is Pegasus, the flying horse. But who was Pegasus and how did he come about? And what is the significance of this myth? Let’s take a closer look at the story of Pegasus and what it means – from the significance of the flying horse
June 13, 2022, 10:52am America’s sad little homegrown fascist brigade, the Proud Boys (like the Brownshirts, but with less no sex!), have taken their victimhood/insecurity-driven agenda to new depths of idiocy (Proud? See image above.) This past Saturday a group of around ten men interrupted Drag Queen Story Time at the San Lorenzo Library in
As the last days of July 1902 ticked away in Hell Creek, Montana, Barnum Brown found himself torn. The party uncovered a Triceratops skull that was in decent condition, though its horns were missing. With enough work, it could be “a fine exhibition specimen,” he wrote to Osborn, knowing that would begin to make up
‘The Sea Change’ is a 1931 short story by the American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). Like a number of Hemingway’s other short stories, ‘The Sea Change’ deals elliptically with a taboo topic – here, bisexuality – through presenting (without fully explaining the back story) a conversation between a young couple in a café. Since Hemingway’s
TODAY: In 1915, Saul Bellow is born. Edafe Okporo reflects on life as a gay ex-priest in Nigeria. | Lit Hub Religion “Glory Hallelujah!! A delicious poke in the snoot for Hitler.” Read excerpts from Mary Churchill’s World War II diary. | Lit Hub History When the smoke cleared in Hell Creek, Montana, exposing a
June 10, 2022, 8:11am Congratulations to PEN America‘s staff, who announced yesterday that they won voluntary recognition of their union! This milestone has been a long time coming. After months of organizing, they wrote to management to formally demand recognition last December and will now continue into the negotiation process. In their statement, they wrote:
‘The Book of Sand’ is a late story by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). This 1975 short story is narrated by a book collector who acquires a mysterious book which appears to have an infinite number of pages. ‘The Book of Sand’ contains a number of Borges’ recurring themes, including the infinite, the