Book picks similar to
Fan Fiction by Frederic P. Miller
literary-criticism
media-studies
subculture
thesis-readings
The Journalist and the Murderer
Janet Malcolm - 1990
She delves into the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject.
Snowed in with the Prince: A Forest Grove Romance (Forest Grove Series, #1)
E.C. Fountain - 2019
A small town librarian struggling to move on from heartbreak...can a snowstorm help this unlikely pair find love? Prince Gabriel “Gabe” Rafferty is not to ready to become king. Gabe craves privacy and time away from the spotlight that comes with being royalty. After striking a deal with his father, he leaves his home in Delnovia to live life as a regular guy in Forest Grove, North Carolina, for six months. Genevieve Porter is nursing a broken heart after an embarrassing breakup that was the talk of the town. She’s sworn off men and just wants to spend time with her friends and her books. After being deceived by her ex, she doesn’t trust easily. But when a snowstorm changes both of their plans, Genevieve finds herself snowed in at Gabe’s mountain home. While Gabe hides his true identity, he is falling for the pretty librarian and the peaceful town of Forest Grove. The more time he spends with Genevieve the more he realizes what it would be like to be with someone who sees who he really is and doesn’t just see power and a title. Genevieve fears falling for the handsome newcomer. Will Genevieve risk her heart only to find out Gabe isn’t who he seems to be? When the truth comes out, will love be enough to heal past wounds and help Gabe and Genevieve find their happily ever after?
Letters From The Attic: Step behind the scenes of the 'Jack Rogan Mysteries'
Gabriel Farago - 2013
Step behind the scenes of the Jack Rogan Mysteries and discover the intriguing world of an international historical thriller writer.As a young boy, Gabriel Farago was given the key to his grandfather’s attic. This magical place opened a world of literature, music and history to the inquisitive boy. Gabriel spent many hours in the attic listening to his grandfather’s records, reading his books, and trying to unravel his cryptic journals which many years later inspired the writing of The Empress Holds The Key.What goes on in the mind of a thriller writer? Where do authors draw their inspiration from? Becoming a writer doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is a journey in itself that provides the material for the stories, and the rich tapestry of characters and settings that bring those stories so vividly to life.
The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning
Maggie Nelson - 2011
The pervasiveness of images of torture, horror, and war has all but demolished the twentieth-century hope that such imagery might shock us into a less alienated state, or aid in the creation of a just social order. What to do now? When to look, when to turn away?Genre-busting author Maggie Nelson brilliantly navigates this contemporary predicament, with an eye to the question of whether or not focusing on representations of cruelty makes us cruel. In a journey through high and low culture (Kafka to reality TV), the visual to the verbal (Paul McCarthy to Brian Evenson), and the apolitical to the political (Francis Bacon to Kara Walker), Nelson offers a model of how one might balance strong ethical convictions with an equally strong appreciation for work that tests the limits of taste, taboo, and permissibility.
Dirty Barry
Mark Farrer - 2020
Barry Sullivan is a sordid dentist who resorts to blackmail to keep his string of married women compliant. But now Cullen has toothache - and a very different interpretation of the dental code of practice. The Tartan Hiaasen strikes again with another tale which roars along - and which will have you roaring along with it. This laugh-out-loud novella is a prequel to the highly entertaining CULLEN series of full-length novels.
Secret Snowman
Alayna Fox - 2019
The first snowman appeared just outside of Pepper’s retirement home with a woman’s brooch on it. When more snowmen start popping up all over town, with items from her neighbors, Pepper realizes Dream Cove has a secret snowman on its hands. Read along as Pepper and her best friend, Tessa, follow the snowman’s trail until it leads directly to the biggest snowman of all. Secret Snowman is a clean cozy mystery. Read it for free with Kindle Unlimited.
Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights
Jonathan Francis Goodridge
Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World
Anne JamisonFrancesca Coppa - 2013
It’s a story about literature, community, and technology—about what stories are being told, who’s telling them, how, and why.With provocative discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the widely misunderstood world(s) of fanfiction—not only how fanfiction is transforming the literary landscape, but how it already has.Fic features a foreword by Lev Grossman (author of The Magicians) and interviews with Jonathan Lethem, Doug Wright, and Eurydice (Vivean Dean).Katie Forsythe/wordstringsCyndy Aleo (algonquinrt; d0tpark3r)V. Arrow (aimmyarrowshigh)Tish Beaty (his_tweet)Brad BellAmber BensonPeter Berg (Homfrog)Kristina BusseRachel CaineFrancesca CoppaRandi Flanagan (BellaFlan)Jolie FontenotWendy C. Fries (Atlin Merrick)Ron HoganBethan JonesChristina Lauren (Christina Hobbs/tby789 and Lauren Billings/LolaShoes)Jacqueline LichtenbergRukmini Pande and Samira NadkarniChris RankinTiffany ReiszAndrew ShafferAndy SawyerHeidi Tandy (Heidi8)Darren WershlerJules Wilkinson (missyjack)Jen Zern (NautiBitz)
Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded
Jason Heller - 2018
Although it didn't factor into the stereotype, it also included science fiction.Strange Stars tells the story of how incredibly well read artists--David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and many more--brought Sci Fi's cosmic flare to their lyrics, sounds, and styles, and changed pop music forever.
Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach
Michael McKeon - 2000
Carefully chosen selections from Frye, Benjamin, Lévi-Strauss, Lukács, Bakhtin, and other prominent theorists explore the historical significance of the novel as a genre, from its early beginnings to its modern variations in the postmodern novel and postcolonial novel.Offering a generous selection of key theoretical texts for students and scholars alike, Theory of the Novel also presents a provocative argument for studying the genre. In his introduction to the volume and in headnotes to each section, McKeon argues that genre theory and history provide the best approach to understanding the novel. All the selections in this anthology date from the twentieth century—most from the last forty years—and represent the attempts of different theorists, and different theoretical schools, to describe the historical stages of the genre's formal development.
Why Bob Dylan Matters
Richard F. Thomas - 2017
Some celebrated, while many others questioned the choice. How could the world’s most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter who wouldn’t even deign to attend the medal ceremony?In Why Bob Dylan Matters, Harvard Professor Richard F. Thomas answers this question with magisterial erudition. A world expert on Classical poetry, Thomas was initially ridiculed by his colleagues for teaching a course on Bob Dylan alongside his traditional seminars on Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. Dylan’s Nobel Prize brought him vindication, and he immediately found himself thrust into the spotlight as a leading academic voice in all matters Dylanological. Today, through his wildly popular Dylan seminar—affectionately dubbed "Dylan 101"—Thomas is introducing a new generation of fans and scholars to the revered bard’s work.This witty, personal volume is a distillation of Thomas’s famous course, and makes a compelling case for moving Dylan out of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and into the pantheon of Classical poets. Asking us to reflect on the question, "What makes a classic?", Thomas offers an eloquent argument for Dylan’s modern relevance, while interpreting and decoding Dylan’s lyrics for readers. The most original and compelling volume on Dylan in decades, Why Bob Dylan Matters will illuminate Dylan’s work for the Dylan neophyte and the seasoned fanatic alike. You’ll never think about Bob Dylan in the same way again.
A Good Woman
Liz Cronkhite - 2018
Aly, recently divorced, with no career and no family, considers herself someone who is just drifting through life. She finds employment as a nanny for an acquaintance, Erika, an attractive lawyer she feels is “out of her league”. To resist her attraction to Erika, Aly maintains her image of Erika as an Ice Queen, despite evidence to the contrary. When that falls away Aly, who values Erika not for her outward success but because she is loving and thoughtful, is still certain Erika would never fall for her. As they grow closer, Aly hides her love for Erika. In time, through Erika’s friendship and her own growth, Aly comes to realize that she, too, is a “good woman”. With her obstacles to Erika gone, only Erika’s lack of interest in her stands in Aly’s way. But is Erika really not interested?
Attack of the Copula Spiders: Essays on Writing
Douglas Glover - 2012
Forster, John Gardner, and James Wood, Douglas Glover has produced a book on writing at once erudite, anecdotal, instructive, and amusing. Attack of the Copula Spiders represents the accumulated wisdom of a remarkable literary career: novelist, short story writer, essayist, teacher and mentor, Glover has for decades been asking the vital questions. How does the way we read influence the way we write? What do craft books fail to teach aspiring writers about theme, about plot and subplot, about constructing point of view? How can we maintain drama on the level of the sentence—and explain drama in the sentences of others? What is the relationship of form and art? How do you make words live?Whether his subject is Alice Munro, Cervantes, or the creative writing classroom, Glover’s take is frank and fresh, demonstrating again and again that graceful writers must first be strong readers. This collection is a call-to-arms for all lovers of English, and Attack of the Copula Spiders our best defense against the assaults of a post-literate age.Douglas Glover is the award-winning author of five story collections, four novels, and two works of non-fiction. He is currently on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program.Praise for Douglas Glover"A master of narrative structure." - Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life, Wall Street Journal"So sharp, so evocative, that the reader sees well beyond the tissue of words into ... the author's poetic grace." - The New Yorker"Glover invents his own assembly of critical approaches and theories that is eclectic, personal, scholarly, and smart ... a direction for future literary criticism to take." - The Denver Quarterly"A ribald, raunchy wit with a talent for searing self-investigation." - The Globe and Mail"Knotty, intelligent, often raucously funny." - Maclean's"Passionately intricate." - The Chicago Tribune"Darkly humorous, simultaneously restless and relentless." - Kirkus Reviews
Until We Break
Cynthia Dane - 2020
The only thing missing from her picturesque, countryside life is companionship. But with a great distaste for dating – and the city – Stefani approaches an international service to make her marital dreams come true.Enter Yulia, the alluring Russian woman with a penchant for heavy flirtation. She occasionally puts her money where her mouth is, too, driving Stefani wild with fantasies that this marriage might be more than convenience.Yet she can’t shake the feeling that Yulia has an ulterior motive. Or maybe that’s the Valettis’ collective past coming back to bite them.YULIA PETROVAYulia Petrova will do whatever it takes to get to America. Specifically, the Pacific Northwest, where the only person who matters is waiting for her.She’ll even marry a total stranger. A woman, no less.The trick isn’t balancing her own preferences. No, the trick is keeping her new fiancée from finding out the truth too quickly. First, she must ensure that Stefani is in love with her. Then, Yulia must reveal the tragic truth that has brought her to America.DO SVIDANIYA, MI AMORETheir budding passion and rising trust in one another is about to be severely complicated by the illness sweeping the world. For Stefani, that means shutting down the winery and hiding behind her chronic anxiety. For Yulia, that means taking all matters into her own hands. The whole world could burn, and she would still get what she came here for.And she will do it alone – with or without the woman she’s come to love
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction
Alan Jacobs - 2011
Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way. In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah's Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs's interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you--the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler's classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices. Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.