**Interesting Articles**

Happy New Year! Post your interesting, thought-provoking or enraging articles here.

Let me open with an older article ranking and explaining plagiarism scandals.

https://lithub.com/12-literary-plagiarism-scandals-ranked/

The Millions semi-annual list of the most anticipated books being published over the next six months is out.

https://themillions.com/2021/01/most-anticipated-the-great-first-half-2021-book-...

And Lincoln Michel discusses what realism means in literature.

https://lithub.com/lets-stop-with-the-realism-versus-science-fiction-and-fantasy...

Carmen Maria Machado in the Guardian plugging the new Virago story collection by celebrating the centenary of Patricia Highsmith’s birth:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/09/twisted-brilliance-patricia-highsm...

And a previously-unpublished Highsmith story: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/09/the-worlds-champion-ball-bouncer-b...

>1 RidgewayGirl: my first visit to the group. Love the Mark Twain quote at your link. Neat stuff first exposure to the publication.

>3 thorold: Thanks! Love Highsmith.

>2 RidgewayGirl: I think realism vs science fiction article is interesting, but misses a major point. It is hard to pin books to boards and classify them. There is a high degree of subjective labeling done by reader.

A few years ago I was part of a book group of mostly 50 plus or Oder members; they wanted to try reading a science fiction novel - only one other person in the group had ever read one. I pick Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. This novel can be read as science fiction or not. There was a science fiction podcast book group that also picked this book but one of the leading members refused to participate because he claimed the book was not science fiction; likewise a literature podcast group had the same problem in reverse: a member refused to read because the book was science fiction. Go figure. Our group read the book and just talked about it; they accepted it as science fiction because we said it was.

Books could slide all over those scales depending on how a reader want to view them. For example, I could say Jane Austen is a fantasy author because her vision of “romance” has no standing in reality. But her books aren’t fantasy in the way readers of the fantasy genre would accept.

>3 thorold: LJ's got a roundup of some Highsmith-adjacent books.

>7 lisapeet: Alas, behind the paywall.

>8 nohrt4me2: Oh phooey, I'm sorry. Some articles you can sign up for a free account and read, but maybe not worth the trouble for one.

Black like we never left is hosting a readathon highlighting Toni Morrison's work January 18-23.

A rather beautiful essay by Ann Patchett about a friendship she developed over this last year:

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/01/these-precious-days-ann-patchett-psilocybin-...

>11 wandering_star: Oh, wasn't that good? Every time I thought she was going to dip into sentimentality or some cliché about illness or friendship, she totally reinvented it.

>11 wandering_star: thank you so much. That was wonderful. She is my favorite.

>11 wandering_star: As a patient whose cancer is incurable but managed for now, I found Patchett's urge to insert herself into Sooki's life puzzling and invasive. We only have Patchett's self-congratulatory account of how she provided a spiritual haven for this poor sick woman. I absolutely cringed when Patchett insisted on cutting Sooki's hair. There are physical changes that come with chemo that you don't even share with your spouse or best friend. Let her have some privacy and go to a salon where the stylists have seen these things and know how to cut carefully. My sense is that Sooki put up with these ministrations and tried to be gracious because the cost of cancer treatment is ruinous.

>14 nohrt4me2: That's true, you don't have both parts of the story. I assumed, given what Patchett said about Sooki's personality, that there was assent on both ends, but of course you do have one person whose home it is and one who's staying there, one person who's healthy and one who's dealing with an illness, and you can never know the other side of the coin. Being on the caregiver side myself, I thought Patchett painted a good picture of the many shifts of mind involved... but yeah, it's always complex when the power is unbalanced.

So there's a make your own Bayeux Tapestry app that is a lot of fun. Here's an example:



https://htck.github.io/bayeux/#!/

>16 RidgewayGirl: Woohoo! Guess what I'll be doing during the Super Bowl? Making a tapestry that shows the Ango-Saxons winning! Gimme a big HWAET for the home team!

>15 lisapeet: Possibly there was some agreement that Sooki would be "material" for Patchett's essay. I sure hope that the essay didn't come as a surprise to her. I wonder if she gets some of the $$ for the story. It all seems exploitive to me. Cancer patients lose control of so much, and Sooki should at least be able to control her own narrative. I realize I am in the minority here, so I'll shut up.

>16 RidgewayGirl: cool!

>16 RidgewayGirl: Excellent!

>16 RidgewayGirl: Everywhere I turn lately, the Bayeux Tapestry is just there! ;) Nice app though :)

>16 RidgewayGirl: My maiden name was Dinan, and the town of Dinan, in Brittany, features in the Bayeux tapestry. If you found the right spot, it says right on it, "Dinantes", I think meaning the people of Dinan.

Anyone else hear the latest about some Dr. Seuss books being taken off the market? I read a bit about that today (his birthday). I am wearing my Dr. Seuss shirt in his honor, and for Read Across America day.

NPR ran article: Dr. Seuss Enterprises Will Shelve 6 Books, Citing 'Hurtful' Portrayals

The six titles removed: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot's Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super! and The Cat's Quizzer.

On the occasion of a new biography of Valentine Ackland, Sylvia Townsend Warner's partner, who was unknown to me before the article:

Gay, communist, female: why MI5 blacklisted the poet Valentine Ackland

>25 LolaWalser: I don't know anything about Ackland but I'm a fan of Townsend Warner, so I'll take a look. Thanks!

>26 lisapeet:

I really should read Warner already, I've had some of her titles around for decades.

So for World Book Day, amazon is offering ten free ebooks in translation.

https://www.amazon.com/article/read-the-world-2021/

>28 RidgewayGirl: thanks!

>28 RidgewayGirl: Wow. Great!

>28 RidgewayGirl: Thanks! There are some titles in there that look interesting, including one from Madagascar.

>28 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay! I just downloaded all 10 books.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/28/crime-against-humanity-arundhati-ro...

We are witnessing a crime against humanity’: Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2021/may/13/why...

This Guardian writer clearly doesn't like online book groups! Or maybe it's just Goodreads - we should invite her over here....

>34 AlisonY: I don't think it's online book groups that she has a problem with. From reading the article, it seems like her issue is more with the public tracking aspect, the gamification. For her, it turned the focus of reading books from the experience of reading to adding to her read tally, and from reading books she enjoys to reading books she wants people to think of her as reading.

I don't feel the way she does - obviously, or I wouldn't be here - but I definitely see her point. Social media has turned a lot of aspects of people's lives into performance, and it's also true that nearly every hobby imaginable has a social media style app to go with it now. I can see wanting to step away from that.

I do agree with you that LibraryThing is very different than GoodReads in a lot of ways. There's definitely less of an emphasis on the gamification aspect here - we don't even have a function to show your progress through a book the way they do. And LibraryThing doesn't have a lot of the more toxic, to use a popular term, aspects of most social media.

But the point that she's making is, I think, less about book websites and apps in specific and more about the gamification and commodification of our lives and hobbies, and the impetus to share every part of ourselves with the world at large, told through the specific angle of GoodReads.

And while I love LibraryThing, and don't feel that it's a negative impact on my reading or life at all, I can see how even a site like this, and definitely a site like GoodReads, could negatively impact certain types of people, and I am troubled a lot by the trends in social media that she's talking about. I think it's a point worth making.

>35 Julie_in_the_Library: I do agree with your points. I don't feel like that in CR, but agree it definitely could turn reading pleasure into something horribly competitive with the wrong people.

I'm trying to remember why I chose LT, with it's quite dated look, over shiny GoodReads. I think it felt more authentic.

>34 AlisonY: Like >35 Julie_in_the_Library: I think she dislikes the competitive people on reading sites: "But that’s exactly what’s wrong with Goodreads: it turns reading into an achievement."

There are "quantity readers" over here. There are also the know-it-alls (of which i am occasionally one, though I try not to be unpleasant about it), books snobs of various types (hard cover v. paperback, owning v. borrowing, physical books v. e-books), people on crusades against certain authors/genres, and the odd sociopath you get on every social media platform who just wants to rile people up.

If you really enjoy reading, all these things can be distressing distractions if you get really invested in a site or group.

My advice to the Guardian author: Don't let GoodReads (or LT) make you its bitch. Use it for what you enjoy. My only complaint is that people post so many interesting books over here or say such interesting things about books that I tend to download or borrow more books from the library than I can possibly read.

I do agree with her on the reading-to-finish, notches-on-the-bedpost aspect of social reading sites, yet here I am. I just ignore it for the most part because it's not my thing—and I guess in my little black heart of hearts I feel like it's kind of a reductive way to read, but many years on the internet have taught me that my opinion on other people's predilections are a lot more fun when I keep them to myself, and folks should do what they like to do. Social media definitely hasn't changed the way I read, though I'm on the older side and my reading habits and preferences were set long ago. I think if you're younger it might be harder not to feel like you have to keep up.

I also don't use Goodreads for much other than logging books and reading reviews from my friends. Sometimes when I'm researching a book for review, but I don't think I use it in the social way that I do here.

I do agree with her on the reading-to-finish, notches-on-the-bedpost aspect of social reading sites, yet here I am. I just ignore it for the most part because it's not my thing—and I guess in my little black heart of hearts I feel like it's kind of a reductive way to read, but many years on the internet have taught me that my opinion on other people's predilections are a lot more fun when I keep them to myself, and folks should do what they like to do (though if you're a writer who earns your keep having public opinions, I say go for it). Social media hasn't changed the way I read, though I'm on the older side and my reading habits and preferences were set long ago. I think if you're younger it might be harder not to feel like you have to keep up.

I also don't use Goodreads for much other than logging books and reading reviews from my friends. Sometimes when I'm researching a book for review, but I don't think I use it in the social way that I do here.

Funny thing - I don’t trust people’s opinions on GR. I read reviews here on LT. But GR is more of a hodge-podge of people. I keep track of my books on both but don’t hang out there.

I think it also matters how much social media you use. I don't use Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or GoodReads any of the other popular, ubiquitous social media sites. I don't feel like I need to make sure that every aspect of my life is publicly presentable at all times, or like everything I do on this site needs to be part of crafting some perfect persona - I haven't fallen into that mode of thinking that heavy social media use can cause.

For me, that allows me to use LibraryThing without it becoming a pressure or sucking the fun out of reading. For people who are much more involved in social media, I think it's probably much more difficult.

For what it’s worth, LT did change how I read, although I have trouble pinning it down or fully understanding it. The numbers issue was ok - well I largely evaded it. But before LT I somehow found it easier to get into books. Once I started getting involved in CR, it became harder.

Other things changed too. The flood of titles with intriguing comments led me to readjust my reading, becoming far more selective, become more frustrated I couldn’t read everything, and so led me to try to make the time I am able to put into reading as valuable as possible. Which then sucked some of the whimsical fun out of my reading - I now need more patience to read whimsical than difficult stuff. I think that’s an LT paradox.

But I’m on CR because I enjoy this company and it’s rewarding to me.

I found the article to be far too self-righteous for my taste. I don't care how many books I read, but I find writing reviews makes me think about a book more deeply and I remember far better. I think that if goodreads was unhealthy for her, then good for her for leaving, but extrapolating that out to "goodreads is bad for everyone" is a stretch.

I use goodreads, mainly because it has a lively bunch of people who also participate in the discussions around the annual Tournament of Books. And just like LT, I stick to reviews by people I know and they are useful to me.

Like Daniel, Club Read has changed my reading. In my case, for the better as I was inspired to read more widely and to choose books less for their entertainment value than for how they challenge me and widen my world. I have nothing against reading purely for pleasure or escapism, and I think that's a fine reason to read. But for myself, it's been a good thing to move forward to books that do more than that and to think about what I read more critically. Without book sites and the people who have conversations there, this would not have happened to the extent it has.

And people can moan about twitter all they want, but book twitter is a joy. Twitter, like most social media sites, gives you what you're looking for.

I've always found these kinds of Guardian articles to be full of hyperbole. Taking an extreme position and extrapolating that every right-thinking person should agree with that position. I suppose that is the nature of editorials, but I can't help raising in opposition to that kind of rhetoric. I feel that a greater amount of nuisance is needed here. If goodreads was bad for her reading habits and the only to fix the situation was to leave, then good for her that was the right decision for her. However, we as readers and users of social media as we mature in these mediums have to come to our own balance.

I certainly acknowledge that there is a self-imposed pressure in belonging to a reading group. A feeling of not reading enough, or fast enough, not reading the right kinds of books, or being articulate enough when surrounded by the diverse readers of something like CR. I found my reading changing since belonging to this group mostly for the better and in some small ways for the worse. I was falling into that trap that my reading wasn't of the right 'type' and that I needed to read more intellectually and less for enjoyment (This was all in my head of course). And I wasn't enjoying what I was reading as much as I use to. It was evident in my own data that while I was having good years, books were falling into love/hate extremes. I think I would have kept going that way and become less enthused with my own reading, but I stepped back from CR for over a year. And that was enough space to re-evaluate what I was doing. It made me release no one actually cares if I'm reading the "right" types of books, or if I'm challenging myself beyond my capabilities. I can read whatever the hell I want when I want, the pressure was all self-imposed, I can stick to my dark corner of literature, read about soccer, and science and still be challenged, still find the capacity for growth. I dearly missed CR and folks that make it up, but taking a break was healthy for my own reading, and where I want to take it in the future. I am still competitive with myself, just no longer going to use CR as a barometer for where I rank in the very imaginary echelon of readers.

This is a podcast rather than an article - but I thought it was brilliant and deserved to be shared.

"How to Write Badly Well", extracts from a book on writing which gives you examples of what not to do. It made me laugh out loud.

In case anyone's interested, the Belfast Book Festival is taking place next week. Everything's on Zoom at a cost of £3 max (many are free). Some great new talents in Northern Irish writing are taking place, as well as Lemn Sissay, Colm Toibin, Elizabeth McCracken and others.

>45 wandering_star: LOTHAR SHININGHEART! I think the author read George RR Martin and made a catalogue of writing sins from that. Loved it, but the podcaster needed to follow some of this advice when he wrote his intro to the segment. Don't explain the jokes, dude.

Article speculates about why popularity of YA dystopian novels have fizzled somewhat. Not sure that some of the reasons don't also apply to waxig and waning of dystopians generally: https://www.polygon.com/22449675/ya-dystopia-fad-ended?

Not an article but a lecture available (for now) on YouTube.

As part of a series of literary lectures, the radio journalist and professor Suanne Kelman speaks on Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.

So English Heritage have taken issue with Enid Blyton: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/enid-blyton/

News in the UK this week.

>50 AlisonY: I read very few Enid Blyton’s as a child (at least compare to some people), but the local library didn’t stock them, and my much older sister (who was my main source of books) never bought me any. So while they weren’t banned, I only got them by more circuitous routes.

>51 SandDune: I devoured Enid Blyton books, and 40 years own my daughter's totally hooked on Mallory Towers and St Claires. This therefore makes me a little sad.

>52 AlisonY: I loved the Famous Five as a child, but the racism is blatant. Even I, an oblivious child, noticed it -- in one book an American child was present and they only agreed to allow her to hang out with them once she learned to speak properly. I still remember them telling her that her pronunciation of "twenty" meant she wasn't worthy of being around them. And the on with the Indian boy was worse. I think they can still be read, but with the active participation of an adult.

The Guardian on the momentum that seems to be gathering for an Ethel Carnie Holdsworth revival. She was an early working-class woman novelist and poet from Lancashire, and a minor hero of the suffrage movement — Ethel Smythe set some of her poems to music.

I’ve read a couple of her books over the last year, she deserves a bit of time in the limelight:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/30/ethel-carnie-holdsworth-campaigner...

interesting that the film based on her book Helen Gates was found in 2007. Looking forward to reading her books as they come out

>55 cindydavid4: It’s a perfect story for a melodramatic silent film! I had a look at a few clips on YouTube. For some reason they switched the setting to Yorkshire, and shot it all on the hills around Heptonstall. She won’t have liked that.

Several of her books are available on archive.org, if you can’t find the modern editions.

Would anyone like to buy a bookstore?

https://www.ledgertranscript.com/Toadstool-Bookshop-owners-seek-new-owner-424017...

(My former place of employment)

Dwight Garner was not a fan of Richard Powers's new, Booker shortlisted book and the review is worth reading because the final sentence is hilarious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/books/review-bewilderment-richard-powers.html

>58 RidgewayGirl: Haha! I know nothing of Richard Powers, but I have to wonder if this novel is a response to the "cozy" critics.

>59 nohrt4me2: His Overstory was good at the beginning, and then just fell apart for me, for many of the same reasons this reviewer didn't care for the new one. But the book Time of Our Singing is my fav of his, about a mixed race couple, both singers after wwii who teach their children to sing. Its a story of civil rights and song through the generations, and has stayed with me years after I first read it.

Like this review of it: "In a quick one sentence summary, it's about issues of belonging and not belonging based on race in the United States. I loved how ideas of music, math and science were threaded through the book - it sounds like that should be clunky, but it's really handled so well that it feels very natural to the world of the story. "

>58 RidgewayGirl: yes, the final sentence made me laugh! I have The Overstory but have not got to it yet. I find his books very mixed in quality but always interesting in what they try to do.

>58 RidgewayGirl: Oh he had a good time with that one.

Wole Soyinka has a new novel coming out, his first in 48 years…!

A gloriously outspoken — if slightly random — interview in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/25/wole-soyinka-this-book-is-my-gift-...

There have been a number of articles published in major newspapers and magazines in the US in the past couple of days, particularly The New York Times, where I first read about it, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times. Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth will be released here tomorrow, and I'll definitely read it soon, as I have pre-ordered the Kindle version of it.

>64 kidzdoc: It seems to big news around the world — a friend told me she’d seen an interview in the Italian papers. (And we had a very silly conversation about how Soyinka does his hair…)

The Guardian added a review of the book itself by Ben Okri yesterday. Definitely on my reading list too!

>64 kidzdoc: I put it on hold in the library as soon as it showed up in their new books list (which is “newly added” and sometimes takes a few months to actually get them). Somehow that was the first time I heard it is coming out.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the anti-library:

https://nesslabs.com/antilibrary

Sounds like a rationalization for self-indulgent consumerism prettied up in some type of Eastern spirituality to me. Could I sound any more like a judgmental curmudgeon? No, I could not.

>68 nohrt4me2: In all fairness, it was an interesting provocative paradox when Eco first came up with it. It’s only after being recycled by Taleb and a million bloggers that it starts to get a bit stale. Maybe the thing to do is to assemble a library of unread blog posts. … Oh, no, wait a minute: there already is one of those.

>70 cindydavid4: Heard about that yesterday. Interesting that some people purportedly suspected the writers were men because the stories invoved too much cruelty. That notion alone deserves some scrutiny.

It seems to be prize season again: South African Damon Galgut has snagged the Booker, the young Senegalese novelist Mohamed Mbougar Sarr has won the Goncourt, and Amélie Nothomb (Belgium via Japan) the Renaudot.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/03/damon-galgut-wins-booker-prize-the...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/03/damon-galguts-layered-feat-of-fict...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/03/senegals-mohamed-mbougar-sarr-wins...

https://www.lefigaro.fr/livres/le-prix-renaudot-est-attribue-a-amelie-nothomb-po...

Kilian Fox plugs Henry Eliot’s new book about Penguin Modern Classics and their covers:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/07/penguin-modern-classics-design-boo...

>73 thorold: Interesting article. Funny enough it tends to be outdated font that screams out at me from old editions far more than the rest of the cover.

>73 thorold:

Thanks, Thorold, for bringing these books to my attention!

I've always loved and admired the look of the early Modern Classics — their stylish simplicity, the line drawings framed by those grey-green bars, the postage stamp complementary splash of orange holding the black and white Penguin logo, the elegant, modernist type face. Instantly recognizable at one hundred yards, those covers could hardly be surpassed for brand recognition.

And the inner pages as well. Despite their low cost, the books were a joy to read because Allan Lane was willing to pay attention to design and usually to set his text in carefully executed Monotype fonts and use binding glue that didn't crack straight away.

There was no pleasure to be had with the contemporary American paperback imprints. Stiff spines that had too often to be broken, crowded pages, ugly type faces, and inks that turned your fingers, the edges of the book, and anything else that you touched, black.

>74 AlisonY: >75 librorumamans: Yes, there was always something magical about those pale Penguins, I remember how exciting it was to see them all lined up in the “Senior Fiction Library” at school…

So there's now a literary award named for Joyce Carol Oates, aimed at authors in mid-career. The long list has been released and it's a long list, but a good one.

https://www.newliteraryproject.org/whats-new/2022-joyce-carol-oates-prize-longli...

>77 RidgewayGirl: I saw that earlier in the week... it really puts the "long" in long list, doesn't it? Then again if JCO is famous for her abundant output, why shouldn't a list named after her be?

"Mid-career." I wonder how they figure that. If one of these writers dies in the next couple years, it will turn out they were at the end of their careers. Are they looking at author age? Number of works already published?

Some good books there, but seems like an odd prize.

>79 nohrt4me2: I think that the idea was to pick authors that do not get enough publicity and awards because they are not the new kids anymore and don’t write sparkly enough to still be IT but they are not old enough to be considered the old ones. But who knows. :)

Also note that the nominations are for authors, not for the books (they are just listed as their latest ones, not their nominated ones).

>80 AnnieMod: Yah, it's kind of a puzzle. I think prizes are generally a mixed bag, i.e., prizes are good to the extent that they recognize writers I like. :-)

>81 nohrt4me2: Or introduce you to new ones you may like. I love "debut novel" prizes. :)

Publishing does have a preference for debut authors, and there's been some discussion about how authors who debuted in 2020 will never get that push from a publisher again, so I like this list for introducing me to a few authors I hadn't heard of and a few more that I had heard of but never read. The ones I have read are excellent, which makes me eager to try the others.

For those who follow it, the long longlist for the Tournament of Books is out.

https://themorningnews.org/article/the-year-in-fiction-2021

>84 RidgewayGirl: will you be reading all of them?

>85 dianeham: No! But I do go through it for books that look interesting and I will be reading all of the shortlist (unless the Powers or Franzen are included -- I've done my time with them already).

Ill at least read cloud cuckoo land, but I don't know enough about the others..

Not an article, but for those interested in reading something by the Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, Gravel Heart is on sale for $1.99 on kindle on amazon right now.

For Murderbot fans - check out this article by Leah Schnelbach on Tor.com. I hadn't though about this, but it makes sense to me!

>77 RidgewayGirl:
>80 AnnieMod: re post #77 Well said.

Just catching up on this thread and noted the new award. I think I only recognized about half that list, and these were the authors who were youngsters during my years at the bookshop).

Morioka Shoten Bookstore

Such an interesting bookstore, selling a single title at a time. Kind of a different way to approach thinking about buying books.

>92 stretch: I wonder if they carry different editions of the current book. I think that would be very interesting. I'd love to visit a display of a single work in all of its different editions and formats over time.