A literary milestone,” and an“essential to any student...of modern literature,” is how Kirkus describes the forthcoming collection, The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume I: 1940-1956. This new volume of Plath’s early letters, edited by Plath scholars Peter Steinberg and Karen Kukil is, by all accounts, a serious and…
As Sylvia Plath once wrote, “If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell.” As I write now, SAME. Like I don’t want to see Kirsten Dunst direct a film version of Plath’s The Bell Jar starring Dakota Fanning, but I also really do?
Vice provoked the ire of denizens of decency around the web when they ran a fashion spread depicting photos of famous female authors in the act of doing themselves in. It has since been removed. But was it really in poor taste, or just poorly done? How should we talk about and show the complex tragedy of suicide?
I don't make a habit of reviewing galleys of books that get sent to me, because — unlike panning The Hangover 3 or something, after which Todd Phillips will probably not show up at my house with tear-stained sleeves — there is the distinct possibility that the author will read my review, and I don't like to hurt…
Sylvia Plath, the brilliant, tragic literary giant you were Most Likely to Be Obsessed With in high school, isn't all Ariel and The Bell Jar. In 1959, she wrote The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit, a children's book about Max Nix, a boy who longs for an awesome all-purpose suit. Although all six of his older brothers find…
On a scale of 1 to Daddy Issues, Selena Gomez ranks among Sylvia Plath, Angelina Jolie and the daughter of the Dos Equis guy, if he has one. Not to mention, let's be honest, most of us.
If Sylvia Plath hadn't already killed herself, she probably would've if she saw the new cover of her only novel The Bell Jar. For a book all about a woman's clinical depression that's exacerbated by the suffocating gender stereotypes of which she's expected to adhere and the limited life choices she has as a woman,…
Is anyone shocked by new research which shows that people in creative professions are treated more often for mental illness than the general population?
Holiday gift alert for any of your literary-minded friends! Flavorwire happened upon an Etsy shop called Uneek Doll Designs that sells handcrafted dolls of famous authors. My favorites, above, are Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, and Judy Blume. Can you imagine if people gave these dolls — along with the books of by said…
Today New Statesman published "Last Letter," a previously unseen Ted Hughes poem about the three days before Sylvia Plath's suicide. Drafts of the poem, which begins, "What happened that night? Your final night," were found in the British Library's archive.
The new online magazine Hardly aims to be the next Sassy — but can that mag's marked-up Chuck Taylors really be filled?
One Potato is a nifty blog devoted to rediscovering both forgotten and beloved children's books. Jay Bushara, the father of two sons, also solicits ideas from readers. A recent find? Sylvia Plath's picture book,The Bed Book.
Nothing good could come of playing with this Sylvia Plath Ouija Board, except for maybe the impetus to write your own confessional and highly disturbing poetry. Also: not a wise purchase for anyone contemplating a major life change. [BuzzFeed]
It seems we're not the only ones obsessed with professional oversharer, food-phobic, American-and-child-hater Liz Jones. Begins a tart profile in the Guardian, "Is Liz Jones mad? I'm not sure. She certainly looks a bit mad." But that's just for starters:
Broadsheet's Amanda Fortini takes issue with Hadley Freeman's indictment of female confessional journalism. "How boring," she writes, "if all pieces of writing were made to meet some standard of exemplary behavior and thought."
Oh, God. Nicholas Hughes, 47, the son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, has committed suicide in Alaska, where until recently he was a professor of fisheries and ocean sciences. [Guardian]
The NY Observer has an amusing article attempting to figure out Gwyneth Paltrow's motivation for starting GOOP, the lifestyle website we love to mock. As ever, Gwyneth's reasons for starting GOOP are unclear, but the Observer at least proves that she's a total hypocrite. Back in 2004 when Paltrow was promoting the…
It's easy to vilify Ted Hughes as the callous philanderer who broke Sylvia Plath's heart, had a suspiciously high number of suicidal wives, and went on write increasingly bombastic poetry. A somewhat different picture of Hughes, who died ten years ago, emerges from The Letters of Ted Hughes, which was just published. …
Esquire put up a slideshow of 75 books every man should read, and it is indeed a very good list. However, it's a very good list that's also extremely myopic. It relies way too heavily on the old white dude cannon (particularly the WASP angst end of it) with books by Updike, Cheever, Kingsley and Martin Amis,…
There's an article in today's Guardian asking Can a feminist really love Sex and the City? The short answer: yes. A woman's pop cultural affections often have very little to do with her belief system. But the other question implicit in this article would be "Is Carrie Bradshaw a proper feminist icon?" That question is…