Suspend Your Disbelief

Shop Talk

Book of the Week: Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s feature is Jonathan Lethem’s most recent novel, Chronic City, published by Doubleday in 2009. Lethem is the author of seven other novels, three collections of stories, and two books of essays. He’s also contributed to dozens of edited anthologies, journals and magazines, and garnered numerous awards during his career, most notably a National Book Critic’s Circle award for Motherless Brooklyn in 1999 and a MacArthur Genius Award in 2005. He lives in Brooklyn and Maine with his third wife, filmmaker Amy Barrett, and their son. In 2009 he co-founded Red Gap Used Books in Blue Hill, Maine, with […]


Book-of-the-Week Winners: Men in the Making

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Men in the Making as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Ted Thompson (@Tednotedward) Daniel Perry (@danielperrysays) Louis Dzierzak (@WriterLou) To claim your free copy, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us!


Your newest ally for NaNoWriMo? Google Docs.

by Celeste Ng

It’s November 1, and that means–yup! NaNoWriMo is upon us. We’ve posted here before about various tools that can help you in your mad writing binge–see below–but this year, we wanted to share a techie tip for distraction-free writing that’s easy and free. Did you know that Google Docs can provide a clean, tool-and-menu-free writing environment? That’s right–nothing to buy, download, or install. Power Tips for Google Docs tells you how: If you are a big fan of WriteRoom on the mac, or the Windows clone, you’ll be happy to know that you can achieve a similar distraction free experience […]


Halloween lit

by Celeste Ng

We don’t usually think of Halloween as a “reading” kind of day, but I can think of at least a couple of Halloween-related stories. In Lorrie Moore’s classic short story “You’re Ugly, Too,” a history professor escapes her life by visiting her sister over Halloween weekend–to attend what may be the most painfully awkward Halloween party in literature: Zoe put on her bonehead. […] When Earl arrived, he was dressed as a naked woman, steel wool glued stretegically to a body stocking, and large rubber breasts protruding like hams. “Zoe, this is Earl,” said Evan. “Good to meet you,” said […]


Costume ideas… for your books

by Celeste Ng

So you’ve figured out what to be for Halloween. But why shouldn’t your books get in on the fun, too? The website Facsimile Dust Jackets sells reproductions of early-edition dust jackets, sized to fit whatever book you want–so you can “dress up” your volumes for Halloween or year-round. Here’s the cover of Of Mice and Men: Or why not let your staid dictionary let its hair down and disguise itself as Barney O’Hara: Trapper? If these are out of your budget, you can always make your own book costumes–uh, I mean, dust jackets. Craft blog Hydrangea Girl has a how-to. […]


Literary Halloween Costume Ideas

by Celeste Ng

Going to a Halloween party this weekend? Here’s a roundup of costume ideas–literary, of course! Last year, LitDrift published a great list, including some clever ideas: Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels: This one will evoke true fright, since we all know how terrifying it is to be tied down by hundreds of miniature Lilliputians. Use a simple outfit for the base: oxford shirt and slacks pushed up to reveal your socks. Then add the finishing touch by attaching a bunch of little army men to string and pinning them all over your body so that they are hanging down at all […]


Vampires and zombies and literature, oh my…

by Celeste Ng

A while back, we noted that vampire lit had–well, gone legit. (If you can major in it in college, it’s legit.) But it’s not just vampires. All kinds of characters previously relegated to genre writing–zombies, werewolves, and monsters galore–have migrated into mainstream literature. Can we blame this on Twilight, or is something bigger at work here? Harldy, says Joe Fassler in The Atlantic, offering several reasons “literary” fiction has turned towards genre: There was a time in recent memory when writers took their cues primarily from the literary figures that came before them. But in 2011, our literary, media, and […]


Book of the Week: Men in the Making, by Bruce Machart

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s feature is Bruce Machart’s debut story collection Men in the Making, published this week by Houghton Mifflin. He is also the author of the acclaimed 2010 novel The Wake of Forgiveness, which won the Steven Turner Prize for debut fiction from The Texas Institute of Letters. It was also selected by Independent Booksellers for their Indie Next List and by the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association as its “Reading the West” book of the year, as well as named a finalist for the PEN/USA Literary Prize. The stories in this new collection have appeared in Zoetrope: All […]


Occupy… Your Bookshelf

by Celeste Ng

So you may have heard about this little thing happening on Wall Street (and in L.A., Boston, Phoenix, San Diego, Chicago, Cincinnati, Berlin, Paris–oh, just read the list here). What you may not know is that the Occupy Wall Street protestors have a library of their own. Reports GalleyCat: As the Occupy Wall Street protest continues, the activists camped out in New York City have built an impressive library. Thanks to Library Thing, you can now explore the library online and watch it grow. Currently, the makeshift library counts 390 books. Well, that was on October 11–the library now stands […]


Journal-of-the-Week Winners: Hobart

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Hobart as our Journal-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Laura Sorrells (@Graceriver) Laurie Koozer (@yinzrreadin) Dave Martin (@martindave) To claim your free subscription, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us!


One Letter Missing

by Celeste Ng

Oh, the difference a single letter makes! The recent Twitter hashtag #bookswithalettermissing marks hilarious (and sometimes brilliant) titles like: @CodeNameTanya: Notes on a Sandal @KBreathnach: Civilization and its Disco Tents @SPLBuzz Harold and the Purple Rayon @EditorEric: The Mon Is a Harsh Mistress: Heinlein’s memoir of a relationship w/Jamaican transvestite dominatrix @atbennet: Far from the adding crowd: a little something for the math-phobic @GetUpInFront: “F” Mice and Men. Steinbeck’s middle finger to the plight of the migrant laborer. The Huffington Post has a great roundup, and you can search Twitter for the latest. Share yours with us!


Franz Kafka. Frank Capra. Franz Capra. Frank Kafka.

by Celeste Ng

To you into the Halloween spirit, here is a wacky and delightfully creepy little short film combining Kafka–struggling to write his story “The Metamorphosis”–and Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. The film won an Oscar for Best Short Live Action Film in 1994. Here’s Part 1. Hooked? Here ‘s the rest:Part 2 / Part 3. (Via.)




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