I am rooting for the female novelists. If most of the die-hard novel readers are women, then surely women writers should always be occupying the top tier of the fiction best seller lists. They should be able to wrestle the #1 and #2 spots away from the likes of John Grisham and James Patterson. [Read more…]
Delphinium Books Blog
Oliver Sacks, Artistic vision and Enlightenment
I recently posted on Twitter and Facebook an essay by Oliver Sacks that described his end-of-life struggles (invariable for us all), recounted with bittersweet resignation. Sacks expressed his gratitude for being given a life of rewarding work as well as the unusual aptitude to understand the complex, mysterious and often misconstrued workings of the human brain.
Reading Dostoyevsky: Advice for Writers from a Writer
Many novelists shut down on reading fiction while they are at work on a book. Some fear that the voice of an author whom they admire might influence their voice, thereby weakening its sound and effect. I am the opposite. [Read more…]
Is 55 Years Worth The Wait?
Harper Lee’s New Novel
I am amazed at how much media attention has been focused on the summer 2015 publication of Harper Lee’s follow-up novel to To Kill A Mockingbird. The new book is to be called Go Set A Watchman, and this title seems somewhat clumsy in comparison to Lee’s beloved novel that is a staple of secondary school education in the United States as well as internationally.
Guess how much a 6-month royalty check pays for a book that was published in 1960?
Lauded Literary Bestsellers
It’s painful when I don’t recognize the mastery of a novel that everyone else seems to love. [Read more…]
Veils and Clarity
Many writers and editors rejoiced last week when Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Committee has often chosen lesser known writers with a sharply defined political agenda that at its best illuminates the harsh inequities of living on this planet. The selection of Munro, a writer of short stories, was the choice of an author whose only agenda is illuminating the small Ontario worlds she knows intimately or Toronto, the city where she says that every Canadian ends up at one time or another. We would like to think that this great writer was chosen for the prize because, not only does she give us a panorama of her fictional world, she also gives us a remarkable sense of its emotional and psychological layers. [Read more…]
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