Get Lost in Literature

Z is for Zombie! I want to end A-Z Challenge with a look at a popular modern day obsession: the reanimated corpse! It's really bizarre. At least with vampires you can point and say: thats a metaphor for something.  But more often than not zombies are rooted deeply in science fiction than entities of fantasy; they were once human, then by disease or scientific hubris, (occasionally by miracle and magic) they died, and then tried to eat someone. It's impossible. It can't happen. But we can't stop asking: What if? What if the dead rose up to wage war against the living?  In Max Brooks's World War Z, he examines the zombie apocalypse from a pessimistic but eerily realistic viewpoint. You see the confusion in the initial stages of the outbreak, the fear of citizens and the people who will try to profit from that fear. You see government reactions across the globe, as they struggle to contain the outbreak and later, their people.  The Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Gra...

Young Adult Fiction, is fiction written and/or marketed to adolescent readers, between the ages of 12-18 -- although advanced readers may have been reading these well before 12. For me, Young Adult maybe the most important literary category; while picture books introduce us to words, introduce us to morals, its not until YA that we really start to understand how powerful words are and what you can do with them. And what we read in that formative, angst-filled, and confusing time period can shape how we view the world.  The Sight by David Clement-Davies, is probably the first book I put my hands on after I ventured bravely from the children's section at my local library. I couldn't have been 10 yet. It was a shock to my system, this fantasy world where wolves waged a war of good versus evil, nurture and nature. Where an evil she-wolf wants to enslave her species to create an army to overthrow man...and the wolf pack that will fight for freedom. I just enjoyed the ride, b...

Xan·a·du (noun) used to convey an impression of a place as almost unattainably luxurious or beautiful I'm rather pleased with myself for finding a X word and figuring out a literary tie in. Given the definition of Xanadu, I wanted to pay tribute to stories with impossibly beautiful settings described in extraordinary detail. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is at the top of the list. Welcome to a circus, each room uniquely enchanted with the magic of warring magicians. You can smell the carmel popcorn, taste the excitement in the air...Erin Morgenstern left no sense deprived of fantasy experience, in her debut novel. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin is a story of good and evil, true love, and miracles, passing down through the generations in an unforgettable snow-covered New York. You can feel the cold on your cheeks, feel the burn of grief in your heart in this story of love and redemption.  Palimpsest by Catherynne M Valente; a seductive and imaginative story o...

Today, I want to talk about books that keep you up all night. I'm talking about those books that make you say, "Just a few more pages..." And then sometime around 2:30 AM you close the book that you've just finished, glance at the clock and realize, "Aww, crap it's late!" And then no matter how hard you try you still can't fall asleep because you're thinking about that book and that ending .  We've all had those books. Much like book quotes, the story that stands out to the individual might not be the story that stands out to the crowd. But in that book that you can't put down, there's an edge of suspense that appeals to you personally and it pulls you in and forward. And I don't know where I'm really going with this train of thought beyond: those books are fantastic! Those blue rings under your eyes from those books are less fantastic. It's sort of grand that someone could write a book as if they knew exactly t...

They're undead, they feed from the living. They scare us, they seduce us. They can save or condemn us. And whether your favorites are good or evil or somewhere in between, there is no denying that despite the hundreds of legends, myths, monsters, and all around paranormal and supernatural tales, there is something about the idea of vampires that human beings cannot let go. So what is it about vampires? Are they a cautionary tale, showing us the price of living forever is too steep to live with? Does it speak to a primal fear of a pretty face hiding a deadly secret? Or the burning curiosity of needing to know more about the dark and mysterious forces of nature surrounding us at any given moment, dictating whether we live another day or die alone in an alley? Whatever the reason, you can't escape vampires. They've been in books for decades. They conquered movie theaters without even trying. Now they've made themselves quite at home inside your television....

I'm inventing a theme for Sunday. I have not yet decided whether or not it will be a permanent fixture, but right now I like the idea of it and I'm going to see how it goes.  My first short story collection ever reviewed on this blog was by Scott F Fitzgerald and there was a problem. How do you review one book when it's full of many stories? I wound up trying to do both: review the book as a whole and acknowledge each individual story inside. This made for one long ass review.  So instead I thought: why not review each individual story as an individual and then upon the books completion review the book as a whole? That way short stories have short reviews and the book review looks a little bit less like pretentious word vomit.  So when the A-Z Challenge is complete, I will be starting Short Story Sunday. It will feature the first story of the following:   Second order of business: when the AZ Challenge draws to a close, I will be shutting off th...

Tranche de vie  is a French phrase that means "slice of life". In literature it refers to a storytelling technique where a character does seemingly arbitrary everyday things in a plot with little or no conflict. This is a weird literary device, and I don't see it used a whole lot. I think most modern writers learn young "must have plot" and not necessarily "must-have theme". Plenty of stories are meant to be enjoyed and not necessarily analyzed. But on the rare occasion tranche de vie pops up, I get to ask the fun question: What does it mean? Sometimes it means the story is incredibly well-thought-out; the author is using an arbitrary and otherwise dull moment in a person's life to illustrate a point. Sometimes it means the opposite: the author simply got carried away and had no point except that he didn't know how to end one scene and move onto the next.  If little else, tranche de vie offers an opportunity stop and think, to  compl...