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more about #literature whynotshesaid: I really got into Joan Didion in my mid-20s, right as I was starting journalism school, and she is one of the handful of writers whose style makes app... more » Maggie Glass: I'm going to go ahead and say that I couldn't get into Slouching Toward Bethlehem at all. I found her voice to be sort of self-righteous in a weird wa... more » girlscoutcookie is back from hiatus: I couldn't make it through The Year of Magical Thinking. Couldn't even make it through the first chapter. Too hard. But my mom read it, and our conver... more » girlleastlikelyto: I do look at writers like Didion -- and Munro and Atwood and Le Guin -- as an example of my mother's generation, but it doesn't offer me any insight i... more » hughman: joan didion was one of my writer idols in high school (another was oriana fallaci). i was a gay boy in the south and it was the 70s. needless to say, ... more » Trulymadlyme: I didn't expect to like her writing. In fact, I absolutely hated "Play It As It Lays." But right around the time when I was 28, single, living in the ... more » heliotrollop: I read Year of Magical Thinking this year and it took my breath away. She has a true gift for putting words to what I thought were indescribable emot... more » CoalMineCanary: Driving from my parent's house in tiny, foggy Morro Bay, CA to San Diego, where I had a class that evening, a fire jumped the highway just north of Sa... more » SarahHeartburn: I love and admire her too, but I hope she lives long enough to write a "get the fuck offa me awready" response. Or something like that. more » TRexstasy: St. Joan the Unblinking has risen to the top of my personal canon of great writers over the last year. No one, male or female, looks at our American ... more » sybann: Writers never write for us. Good artists produce because they must. more » PilgrimSoul: Am I weird? I love Didion's writing, but I in no way flatter myself to claim I know her. I hadn't realized she was of some particular amazingness to... more » clevernamehere: I think the people who complied the list need to really, really examine their bias. I cannot believe that 70% of books are written by men. I'd guess... more » Rooo sez BISH PLZ: This is just ... so obvious to me. Why does it never occur to these supposedly top-of-the-food-chain-esque literary critics that the very foundation... more » LBB: . more » TheGintheCity: Upfront, I do think it's ridiculous that there isn't single a woman on this list. However, from a purely "publishing person" perspective, if I comple... more » hfree: Wolf Hall, written by Hilary Mantel, won this year's Booker Prize. The Children's Book, by AS Byatt, and The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters, were s... more » Dodgergirl: "What we like" is always going to have biases. It's about personal taste and judgment. It's really stupid to try to deny that, and pretty insulting ... more » Taren: No no, there's never a bad time for lists! The great thing about a list like this (which is garbage for ignoring women) is that it can inspire discuss... more » velleity: I think the PW is being slightly disingenious when they say they "ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz", because while those things may not e... more » -
#magicalthinking
Saint Joan: Young Women And The Cult Of Didion
A couple of years ago, my then-boyfriend wrote a piece of erotica about Joan Didion, which fact should go some ways towards explaining both why the relationship lasted as long as it did, and why we were ultimately incompatible: More » -
#litlists
Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
Publishers Weekly didn't include any female authors on its list of the 10 best books of 2009. Is a counter-list in order, or should we just do away with such lists entirely? More » -
#librarysciences
Women Of Letters
The New York Public Library has become home to thousands of pages from the journals and notebooks of E. Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain. Also acquired: Sketches by "Eloise" co-creator Hilary Knight. [YahooNews] -
#womanofletters
Behind The Iron Curtain: Herta Mueller Wins Nobel Prize For Literature
Herta Mueller, a 56-year-old member of Romania's ethnic German minority, has won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature for her stark depictions of life under Communism. More » -
#1000words
Judging A Book By Its Cover: An Artistic Analysis Of Going Rogue
As mentioned earlier, the cover of Sarah Palin's memoir, Going Rogue was released today. Since we don't yet have access to the idiocy that lies beneath, we decided to take a closer look at the cover, from an artistic perspective.
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#sexthebitchy
Is "Bitch Lit" The Cure For The Common Chick Lit Novel?
Sydney Zamora is a brash, calculating and unrepentant heroine who is quick to drop a suitor and curse him out as she extracts herself from the date. Is she the new prototype for chick lit characters?
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#metafiction
Books Selling Books: Today's Bestsellers Hawk Yesterday's Classics
Twilight fans are apparently driving up sales of Wuthering Heights — Edward and Bella's favorite book. This led us to wonder what other classic books could be endorsed by contemporary bestsellers. More » -
#praxis
'I'm The Only Feminist There Is – The Others Are All Out Of Step'
Fay Weldon is a grande dame of feminist literature - albeit a renegade one. She chose her choices - and does it make her less of an icon?
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#artimitateslife
Lord Of The Flies Author Admitted Attempted Underage Assault
In an admission in some ways as disturbing as his famous novel, Lord of the Flies, author William Golding wrote in an unpublished memoir that he had tried to rape a fifteen-year-old girl when he was eighteen. More » -
#fireofmyloins
"I Don't Wish To Touch Hearts..."
Fellow nerds! Check out this discussion with Vladimir Nabokov, shortly after Lolita's American publication. He's combative, has a heavy Russian accent, and at one point they all tacitly stand up and move to this "drawing room" set. [YouTube via BoingBoing] -
#janeaustenbookclub
Possibility Of Possible Jane Austen Suitor Possibly Inflames Fans
A new book, Jane Austen: An Unrequited Love claims that Jane Austen might have been in love with a guy who might have been this guy and that she and her sister might have fought over him! Squee! More » -
#notthatinnocent
House Of Mirth
Trustees of the Mount, Edith Wharton's Massachusetts estate, have restructured the site's finances to reduce its multimillion-dollar debt. Measures include adding Mount-hosted festivals, writing workshops, and lecture series. Marrying well's not an option? [AP] -
#girltalk
Are Teen Girls Really That Fragile?
Today the New York Times asks: does this YA novel about eating disorders serve as an E.D. primer? More » -
#bibliomania
Lost In Translation
Of Nabokov's Russian version of Lolita, the New Republic, in 1968, noted: "Lolita herself...is one-and-one-half inches shorter in Russian." [The New Republic] -
#chicklit
Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
A new book by critic Elaine Showalter begs the question, are women writers now just writers? More » -
#sontagfordummies
How To Be Really Annoying By Emulating Susan Sontag
Wondering how to become a brilliant public intellectual? Anne K. Yoder at The Millions has some tips, culled from the journals of Susan Sontag. More » -
#listicles
"Fictional Men Worth Loving"
Someone wrote into the Wall Street Journal to ask if Cynthia Grossen could recommend another fictional hero as swoony as Twilight's pallid Edward Cullen. Grossen gives some picks, but we think we can add to it. More » -
#theyellowwallpaper
"Live As Domestic A Life As Possible": A Female Author's Life Of Oppression, Depression, And Release
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's proto-feminist horror novella The Yellow Wallpaper is about to be re-released, prompting the Telegraph's Justine Picardie to examine her painful and sometimes inspiring life. More » -
#hemingwow
The Old Man And The...Lacey Bonnet
If it's ever seemed like Ernest Hemingway was suspiciously eager to prove his masculinity, this may provide a clue as to why: as a child, his mother dressed him in drag.
