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10 of the Most Divisive Authors in Recent History

By Emily Temple on

Recently, we stumbled upon an article over at Open Letters Monthly that asked, “Is Cormac McCarthy a Terrible Writer?” The author, Rohan Maitzen, discusses McCarthy’s particular prose style in The Road, which has been celebrated by some and roundly reviled by others. We’ve always been interested in the idea that many of the greatest writers also seem to have the most detractors, so to explore further, we’ve rounded up a few of the most divisive authors in recent… Read More

Books

The Books That Made the Most ‘Best Of 2012′ Book Lists

By Emily Temple on

December means a lot of things. Our normally latent shopping gene starts itching like crazy, mint-flavored coffee starts sounding like a good idea, and every single media outlet (ourselves included) puts up their “best of” everything lists. Well, ’tis the season. In an effort to distill all those year’s end book round-ups — and let’s face it, be a little meta — we looked at 16 lists from 14 media organizations and counted up the books that tickled the most critics this year. Turns out, they had quite a few differing opinions — on those 16 lists alone, we noted more than 150 unique titles — but also agreed across the board on a few knock-outs. After the jump, feast your eyes on the most popular books of the 2012 best book list season — and let us know if you agree with consensus or think the world’s gone mad in the comments. … Read More

Books

25 Notable Books Unfairly Overlooked by ‘The New York Times’

By Emily Temple on

Earlier this week, The New York Times published their annual year-end list of the “100 Notable Books of 2012,” as chosen by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. As usual, the list is filled with very predictable (though often very worthy) choices, but this year we were surprised not only by the amazing, under-the-radar books the Times ignored, but by the equally amazing but high-profile and relatively commercial books that also got snubbed. To that end, we’ve compiled an alternative, or an addendum, if you will, to the Times’ list, including both lesser-known books we loved this year, and some big name books we can’t believe didn’t make the cut. Click through to read our list, and if you so desire, register your own addendums to our addendum in the comments. … Read More

Books

Did ‘The New York Times’ Just Forget About Salman Rushdie’s Memoir?

By Emily Temple on

Yesterday, The New York Times published their always controversial, never comprehensive list of their picks for the 100 most “notable” books of 2012, chosen by the editors of the New York Times Book Review. We’ll save most of our quibbling for later, but we did notice one glaring omission — the space where… Read More

New York

New York’s 100 Most Important Living Writers

By Flavorwire Staff on

Philip Roth’s recently announced retirement got us thinking about the state of New York City’s literary landscape. As a result, we’ve compiled a list of the city’s 100 most important… Read More

Books

Famous Literary Truces: Epic Feuds That Fizzled

By Emily Temple on

This week, the literary world was abuzz with the news of the reconciliation of Salman Rushdie and John le Carré after fifteen years of enmity, though we have to admit, we’re a little disappointed. You just don’t get that many good literary feuds these days, what with all the excessive apologizing and proper behavior (or maybe it’s just that there’s not enough drinking), and Rushdie is one of the last living writers ready for a dust-up, even if it’s just with Facebook. Still, we know our mothers would tell us that it’s better to be friends than enemies, so after the jump, we present a short list of famous literary feuds that went sweet and ended in truces. Click through to get the warm and fuzzies, and let us know who we missed in the comments. … Read More

Celebrity

How 40 Famous People Are Weathering the Frankenstorm

By Judy Berman on

Thanks to Sandy, famous people like Alec Baldwin, Spike Lee, and Lena Dunham are as stuck in their beautiful homes as we are in our tiny, cramped ones. Here, find some of their best tweets.… Read More

Books

Writers Praising Writers: 15 of the Best Compliments from One Author to Another

By Emily Temple on

We all know authors can insult one another with aplomb, but do those bitter wordsmiths ever have anything nice to say? Well, yes, of course. If we had to guess, we’d say that most authors’ biggest fans are other authors, who might understand a given piece of literature better than any mere mortal — or they might just be more likely to write about it. In the excellent collection Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story, which hit shelves last week, 20 famous writers choose and introduce the short stories from the periodical that moved and thrilled them. In honor of the book’s publication, we’ve put together a few of our favorite author-on-author compliments. Click through to spread the love, and if we’ve missed your favorite compliment, add to our list in the comments. … Read More

Books

$500K Added to Salman Rushdie Fatwa Reward

By Judy Berman on

Now that Salman Rushdie is very much out of hiding, partying in public with a seemingly endless parade of beautiful girlfriends, you might have assumed that Iran’s fatwa against the author is a thing of the past. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. As recently as 2006, the government confirmed that the fatwa is permanent. Now,… Read More

Pop Culture

10 Literary Authors Who Have Written for TV

By Emily Temple on

This week, were excited (and somewhat skeptical) about the news that Bret Easton Ellis, author of teenage-ennui classic Less Than Zero and bourgeois-ennui classic American Psycho, is working on writing a new drama series for the CW about monstrous high schoolers entitled Copeland High. Though television is often considered the junk food to the nourishing meal of literature, Ellis’s project reminded us very fondly of the authors who have turned their literary chops to writing for television — whether for good or for ill. Click through to read our brief survey of novelists who have written for TV (and usually improved it in the process), and let us know if we’ve missed your favorite multi-faceted writer in the comments. … Read More