archive

Artificially engineered genres

Common Calamities: What can literature tell us about the tragedies in Haiti and Chile? Work has become central to most people’s self-conception — why does fiction have so little to say about it? A look at why some memoirs are better as fiction. What does the popularity of memoirs tell us about ourselves? (and more and more on Ben Yagoda's Memoir: A History). By marrying the intimacy of autobiography with the aesthetic eclecticism of the graphic novel, graphic memoirs occupy the fertile realm between fiction and nonfiction, as well as between literature and art. At a time when comic book culture has never been more mainstream, where’s the line between wannabe and true believer? An interview with Tom Gauld on picture books for adults. Authors may gear their novels toward the junior and senior high crowd, but adults are snapping up the books, often about misfit teens or fantasy worlds. Do the edgy offerings for today’s young adults go too far over the edge? You must be having a laugh: Comic literature rarely wins prizes but the best examples are still a serious joy to read. A contemporary spin on age-old myths: Sam Munson on why we can’t help reinventing classics like the Odyssey. Something weird this way comes: Meet the 21st century's new literary movement. Critics like to denigrate horror by pointing out that unlike mystery, western or romance, horror specifies no content beyond the emotion it is intended to arouse — but this absence of specificity is not at all a limitation. From Hipster Book Club, Kyle Olson on the dearth of good horror and the downside of hot vampire sex; and an interview with Seth Grahame-Smith on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Is monster lit worth unearthing? Here are a few examples of artificially engineered genres to get you brainstorming.