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Joyce Carol Oates

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10 Books About Sports That Even Non-Fans Should Read

By Jason Diamond on

Not only am I a fan of the franchise, but I also consider the 1985 Chicago Bears the greatest single-season football squad to ever hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy, so I could see how one could chalk up my judgment that Rich Cohen’s Monsters is one of the finest books on the sport that I’ve ever read to bias. Yet the fact remains that Cohen’s other great books — which have looked at Jewish gangsters, banana barons, Chess Records, and packaged sugar substitutes, while also offering up either small autobiographical bits of Cohen’s life or massive chunks that borderline on memoir — are also favorites of mine. … Read More

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Books

The 50 Greatest Campus Novels Ever Written

By Emily Temple on

No matter how old you are, the back-to-school season holds a certain kind of allure – be it nostalgia for scholarly tradition, the crisping of the days, a Pavlovian need to buy books, or just the satisfaction that you don’t have to be in class ever again. If you’re looking to indulge yourself without the schoolwork, you may take pleasure in another hallowed tradition: the campus novel. That is, books concerning the lives of students, professors, and miscellaneous academics, generally in or around a college. Here are 50 of the… Read More

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Books

Did Joyce Carol Oates Mean to Blame Islam for Rape in Egypt?

By Jason Diamond on

Who doesn’t sometimes sit around and wish that they could be half as prolific as Joyce Carol Oates? The 75-year-old author falls just after Philip Roth on the list of America’s most decorated writers (both are equally Nobel Prize-less), but unlike the now-retired 80-year-old Roth, Oates hasn’t shown any signs of stopping anytime in the near future. She even shares whatever thoughts pop into her head on her popular Twitter account. Earlier this year, Andy Boyd at PolicyMic extolled the “sublime joys” of following Oates, saying her tweets were like a “parody of the implied author of her stories,” and most of the time it is a total treat for all of us to see an iconic writer writing for us in real time; we get to know what Oates is thinking at that very moment, and we should all be thankful for that. … Read More

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Books

Required Reading: The Bling Ring

By Emily Temple on

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten,” Ralph Waldo Emerson famously quipped, “even so, they have made me.” In this bi-weekly series, Flavorwire plays professor to some of our favorite pop culture characters, assigning reading lists tailored to their temperaments or — in some cases — designed to make them into slightly better people. After all, even fictional characters can have their lives changed by books. Or so we imagine. This week, we recommend a reading list for the eponymous Bling Ring of Sofia Coppola’s newest feature. … Read More

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Books

Flavorwire Exclusive: Lindsay Hunter on Her Favorite Short Story

By Emily Temple on

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 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 this installment, Lindsay Hunter, whose electrifying second collection Don’t Kiss Me is forthcoming in July, recommends one that she can’t just get out of her head. … Read More

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Books

The 10 Greatest Creepy Farm Books

By Emily Temple on

In Julie Sarkissian’s wonderful debut novel, Dear Lucy, which hits shelves today, a young woman with a peculiar way of perceiving the world finds herself exiled from her mother’s life, living on a farm where something — Lucy can’t quite figure out what — is wrong, just beneath the surface. Or maybe there’s more than one something. Lucy sets out on a quest to make things right, as well as she can, in a story that’s equal parts sweet and strange. To celebrate the book’s release, we asked Sarkissian to tell us about her favorite creepy farm books — a surprisingly lush category! We always knew something was awry with all those creaky barns. Check out her picks after the jump, and be sure to grab a copy of her book — extra points if you do it tonight at the book’s release party at Brooklyn’s BookCourt. … Read More

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Books

10 Great Contemporary Campus Novels: Proof the Genre Is Still Kicking

By Emily Temple on

This week, we read an article over at the Guardian calling for the “retirement” of the campus novel, citing its apparent rite-of-passage status and prevalence, but sniffing, “the standard of the campus club’s productions, however, increasingly makes you wonder why they bother.” Well, we disagree. We love campus novels, and though the classics – Lucky Jim, Pnin — hold extra-special places in the bookshelf of our heart, we think contemporary versions are continuing the tradition in fine form. To prove our point, we’ve selected ten of our favorites, written in the last 20-odd years (our cutoff is 1990), that prove the genre is still relevant. Page through our picks after the jump, and let us know what you think of the modern campus novel in the comments. … Read More

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Books

17 Essays by Female Writers That Everyone Should Read

By Emily Temple on

The ratio of male to female writers published in literary journals, magazines, and book reviews remains largely disproportionate in favor of male writers. But the lit mag Creative Nonfiction‘s current issue, “Female Form,” includes only essays by female writers. To hammer home the point that there are indeed plenty of women writing serious nonfiction, the magazine curated this list of 17 essays by female writers that every woman (and man) should… Read More

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Books

The Wildest Teenagers in Literature

By Emily Temple on

In Wild Girls, Mary Stewart Atwell’s new debut novel, the young ladies of Swan River are changing. The “wild girls,” teenagers suddenly imbued with supernatural powers that give them both the ability and the will to murder, menace the town while Kate Riordan tries to hang on to both her life and her sanity. Inspired by this impressive debut, we’ve put together a list of what we consider to be some of the wildest teenagers in literature — from gang members to errant soldiers to kids making the best of a bad situation by going feral. See our choices after the jump, and if we missed your favorite literary teen on a rampage, be sure to add to our list in the comments. … Read More

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Books

10 New Must Reads for September

By Emily Temple on

Fall is always a huge season for the publishing industry. It makes sense: all those back to school feelings making everyone long for stacks of books to carry around, the holiday season right around the corner, beach-goers ready to read Big Serious Fiction again. But this first fall month is a particularly huge one, with a slew of modern masters (Chabon, Smith, Díaz, Rowling, Rushdie) publishing meaty books that we can’t wait to get our hands on. If you’re feeling that wistful back to school reading urge — or just looking for something to hide in the jacket of your chemistry book this fall — we’ve got just the ticket. Click through to check out our list of the books we’re most excited about this month, and let us know which ones are calling your name in the… Read More

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