In answer to the question “what’s behind the boom in dystopian fiction for younger readers?” Laura Miller wrote in a June New Yorker magazine that “for young readers, dystopia isn’t a future to be averted; it’s a version of what’s already happening in the world they inhabit” (see ‘Fresh Hell,’ 14 June 2010). It’s not an especially challenging thesis — and Miller’s command of the literature in question is admirable — but, though non-falsifiable in nature, I think it misses on at least two counts the greater appeal of Ms. Collins’ Hunger Games, the popularity of which series prompted the essay. [Read more…]
Shared Text: “Nice Work, Dumbledore!”
August 13, 2010 by 1 Comment
It’s a throw-away line at the very end of a long Daily Show with Jon Stewart piece about Congressmen “playing the race card,” but the line “Nice work, Dumbledore!” gets a very big laugh. Which represents, of course, the degree to which this fictional character’s appearance has become part of the shared public imagination.
Any other recent sightings? Or is that “citings”?
Guest Post: Recommended ‘Young Adult’ Fiction
August 13, 2010 by 19 Comments
We focus on Harry Potter here and have a good deal of enthusiastic discussion about Twilight and the Hunger Games books (10 more days to Mockingjay!) but there are a lot of other books out there we neglect by necessity in saying as much as we do about these series. To help correct that imbalance, long time HogPro All-Pro Deborah Chan, aka Arabella Figg, a writer living in eastern Washington State, offers her recommendations in a guest post titled ‘Young Adult Books Offer Great Reading.’ Enjoy!
Every time I go into bookstores or the library these days, I get discouraged by the adult selections. I’m an eclectic reader, so I can’t just head over to a particular genre section and find a treasure trove. Instead, I circle around the new and general/genre book section, picking up, putting down…and often leave empty-handed and discouraged, wondering if there will ever be anything good to read again.
Adult fiction has been overtaken by what I call The Jodi Picoult Syndrome (Picoult writes bestsellers—I’ve read two—that are literary, compelling, and… vastly depressing). This Syndrome means that a novel will plunge me into a gloomy, psychological story, full of angst, dysfunction, family secrets, rocky and wrecked marriages, creepy people, disturbed or damaged children, tragedy, forbidden love, and an ending that can’t possibly have an edifying or uplifting resolution, given the whopping freight of human misery leading up to it. Last fall I tried to read Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge for a book club and the unpleasant narrator drove me away by page three. [Read more…]
Is Arthur Weasley a Hat-Tip to Arthur Wellesley?
August 6, 2010 by 15 Comments
I was just finishing up my essay on the choice of 1692 for the date of the International Statue on Wizarding Secrecy, when my wife received this post on her FaceBook page from HogPro All-Pro, Jerry Bowyer:
“Hey, Mary, has John ever noticed the parallel between Arthur Weasley in HP and Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, the British PM?”
The answer to his question is “No, I hadn’t” but it is a great catch and I blush that I hadn’t made this connection. I think it’s a match for three reasons: [Read more…]
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