Every story in any medium has 3 things in common: a beginning, a middle, and an end. The order of it is of course subject to change, as anyone who’s read Catch-22 or watched Arrival (2016) would tell you. Now, let’s dispel the notion that you can only have one of each within the framework of a narrative.
“Plant-based”, “extinction”, and “flight shame” were all shortlisted to be crowned Oxford Dictionaries 2019 word of the year, but amongst this all-environmental semantic shortlist, “climate emergency” came out on top. Usage of the term has increased by a hundredfold since the previous year.
From an outsider’s perspective, Paris is a city of culture, romance, and art. You value the atmosphere as you stroll through the streets and think of all the great artists who have walked before you. It is no surprise then, that “the bookshop” is one of the most popular tourist destinations.
Offering over 44 million titles, the world’s biggest bookseller seems like the most trustworthy source to get a recommendation. With so much to choose from, you would think our reading preferences would expand with each Amazon order. But we often find ourselves browsing the same section of the virtual bookshelf.
I Love Dick is a manifesto for a generation of women who want to have it all, say it all, and be it all. Its journey from an underground, experimental novel to a cult classic shows far how ideas about women and femininity have evolved in that time.
There is a handful of English bookshops in Paris, for those who know where to find them. Yet none of them are as famous as the one standing in the shadows of Notre-Dame, the one with yellow and green lettering. The one known as Shakespeare and Company.
The heart of World Book Day is encouraging book haters to become book lovers, to tackle the elitist stereotypes around reading, to give a child a form of escapism. How can we not justify this scheme being useful for adults?
“When I write, I’m not a woman, I’m not a Moroccan, I’m not a Muslim, I am whatever I want.… Love has no nationality,” says author Leïla Slimani. This raises the question, and a paradox for our age: Should authors from a minority background be restricted to writing novels based on their own experience?
Mainstream literature can learn a lot from YA fiction about writing characters. It should be remembered that not all characters need to be straight and white. YA provides a great, safe place for BAME and LGBT+ writers and readers alike to see themselves represented.
Call it the Trump effect: “post-truth” was named Oxford Dictionaries 2016 word of the year. It is no coincidence that the literary memoir has appeared in abundance on shelves ever since.
