Category Archives: Newsiness

The Greatest Novels of the Millennium: A Work in Progress

Interesting to see how BBC Culture‘s list of the “12 Greatest Novels of the Millennium (So Far)“–compiled from lists submitted by “several dozen book critics” compares with the list(s) the people at The Millions (“experts” v. “readers”) came up with at … Continue reading

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Why writers must reproduce

When Laurie Hertzel linked my Star Tribune review of Doctorow’s new novel to my FaceBook page, my son, who’s 16, commented:  “THAT’S MY MOM I’M SO PROUD.”  Rethinking this (and as Laurie remarked, how many 16-year-olds think about tone?), he … Continue reading

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Some (Old) Guys: J. M. Coetzee, David Grene

 Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man? When David Grene died, at 89, in 2002, Douglas Martin said of him, in the New York Times, that his “translations of ancient Greek spoke with such clarity that the writer … Continue reading

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Margaret Atwood’s bad reputation

For a review, reading the advance reader’s copy of Margaret Atwood’s new book, MaddAddam, the last in her futuristic dystopian trilogy, after Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood (which I reviewed here), I recalled my first Atwood … Continue reading

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