The short story can be a magical thing. It’s a breath, a moment, a captured mood — or an entire teeming world packed into a few pages. Maybe, if it’s really great, it’s both. The only trouble with short stories is that not enough people read them. So, in a new series to celebrate Short Story Month (and help you add to your reading list), Flavorwire is asking some contemporary masters of the form to talk about the short stories they love. In the first installment, George Saunders, whose most recent collection is the tremendous Tenth of December, recommends one of his many favorites. … Read More
George Saunders
10 Foolproof Books to Give as Gifts
Tonight is World Book Night, an international event wherein devoted volunteers pick a favorite out of 30 books, selected by an independent panel of librarians and booksellers, and hand copies out in their communities, encouraging those who don’t normally read or have access to books to experience something new. In case you missed the boat on volunteering, but are inspired to gift a book to someone who doesn’t read very often, we’ve put together a list of foolproof gift books that (almost) everyone will love. Some of these have been selected as World Book Night books in the past, and some have not, but we think they all will encourage a brand new or rediscovered reading habit — and your reputation as an excellent gift-giver. Check out our list after the jump, and add to it at will in the comments. … Read More
10 (More) Wonderful Short Stories to Read for Free Online
Around this time last year, we gave you a list of a few of our all-time favorite short stories that were available to read online for free. By now, we expect that you’ve read them all, so we thought it was high time to collect a few more. After the jump, ten more short stories that you can read for free — on your phone on the train, while pretending to work, printed out with a cup of tea on the couch — all of them guaranteed to be great (and a few that were suggested by readers on our first go-around). But of course, the Internet abounds with these, so if you’ve a generous spirit, you could even add to our list in the comments. Happy reading. … Read More
The 25 Greatest Essay Collections of All Time
This week marks the release of Aleksandar Hemon’s excellent book of personal essays, The Book of My Lives, which we loved, and which we’re convinced deserves a place in the literary canon. To that end, we were inspired to put together our list of the greatest essay collections of all time, from the classic to the contemporary, from the personal to the critical. In making our choices, we’ve steered away from posthumous omnibuses and multi-author compilations, and given what might be undue weight to our favorite writers (as one does). Click through to see our nominations for the 25 greatest essay collections of all… Read More
10 of Our Favorite Profiles of Ten of Our Favorite Writers
This week, like everyone we know, we fell head over heels for Joel Lovell’s wonderful profile of Flavorpill favorite George Saunders in The New York Times Magazine. What with that and his amazing new collection, we’re thinking that this might just be the year that Saunders transitions from being every writer’s favorite writer to everybody‘s favorite writer — after all, when the cover of The New York Times Magazine calls out your book as the best of the year (in January, no less), that’s as good of a ticket to household name status as you’re likely to get, shy of any Oprah-gilding. For those of you who, like us, inhaled Lovell’s profile and found yourself itching for more great writing on great writers, we’ve put together a few great profiles that you can read online to slake your literary lust. Read through for some choice quotes and links to the original articles, and do point us toward your own favorite author profiles for further reading in the comments. … Read More
10 New Must-Reads for January
It’s a brand new year, so why not start it off right with some brand new reads? If you’re anything like us, your resolution list is largely book-related, so now that your hangover’s gone, it’s time to get cracking. We’ve already taken an early look at our most anticipated reads for the year as a whole, but after the jump, we delve a little deeper into January’s fine offerings. Keep warm and keep your resolve this month with short story collections, debut novels, and series-ending fantasy galore — check out the books we’re most looking forward to reading over the next few weeks after the jump, and let us know which ones look best to you in the comments. … Read More
Flavorpill's 30 Most Anticipated Books of 2013
If killer short story collections, triumphant returns, and more delicious-sounding novels than you can shake a stick at sounds like a good thing to you, then 2013 is shaping up to be a banner year for new… Read More
10 of the Funniest American Essayists of Our Time
Like many of you, this week we were saddened to hear of the death of phenomenal and darkly comic essayist David Rakoff, who had been battling cancer for many years. To celebrate his life and the great literature he left us with, we’ve put together a list of some of the funniest modern essayists, who like Rakoff, are following in the giant footsteps of Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker and James Thurber as America’s great humorists. We’ve tried to limit ourselves to purely contemporary writers, but since we’ve lost several hilarious and essential voices all too recently, we’ve cheated just a bit. Read through our list after the jump, and since these are only our personal preferences plucked from a very long list, be sure to add your own favorites in the comments. … Read More
10 Great Off-Kilter Love Stories in Literature
If you’re anything like us, you like a little quirk with your romance. Or, um, make that a lot of quirk. This week saw the release of Joe Meno’s newest novel, Office Girl, an off-kilter love story between two meandering artist-types trying to make it in Chicago on little more than fumes, awkward sex, and half-baked schemes — until they find each other, of course. After reading the short novel, we had a hankering for some more weird tales of love, so we put together this list of some of our favorite off-kilter romances in literature, from the dark and strange to the relentlessly whimsical. Click through to check out our picks, and as always, be sure to let us know your own favorite book in this vein in the comments. … Read More
10 Wonderful Short Stories to Read For Free Online
Had she not passed away at the too-young age of 39 from lupus, today would have been legendary Southern Gothic author Flannery O’Connor’s 87th birthday. To celebrate her legacy of pitch-perfect short stories and razor-sharp wit, we’ve collected a few of our favorite works from some of the best short story writers of all time, all available online — though we can’t promise reading them that way will be as satisfying as hefting a huge tome of collected stories. This is not meant to be a definitive list of the best short stories in the world, but merely a celebration of the form and a collection of ten of our many favorites, limited to those that we could track down online, to make your Sunday afternoon a little better. Click through to read ten stories from some of literature’s greats, and link us to your own favorites in the comments! … Read More
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