Wonderful question, wonderful answers–I’ll just toss in four more: Borges, Seven Nights, Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, and in case anyone out there still considers poetry part of what we mean by “literary” (many non-litterateur friends of mine do, but I’m drawn to poetry-lovers), Muriel Rukeyser’s The Life of Poetry and Glyn M…[Read more]

I love Artful!

Such a pleasure to share tastes; I’d be delighted if you submitted to readingsjournal.net

Dear Steve,

thank you very much! All your suggestions are either books I like, or (incl. the beguilingly entitled work of your own) books that I probably will like. You are very warmly invited to join the journal I’m launching  as an author and/or reviewer.:)

Call for Papers and Reviewers

Best,

Alexandra

If you do recommend Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” I would also strongly recommend that you suggest that they read Fatemeh Keshavarz’s trenchant critique of it, “Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran.” Nafisi’s book is full of problems and, as Keshavarz argues, it–like Khaled Hosseini’s “Kite Runner” and many other…[Read more]

Reading Lolita in Tehran never grabbed me, but it sure resonated with a broad public and has been translated into many languages. Ali Smith’s Artful is a strange amalgam, in which a well-done, ghoulish narrative of grief drives some otherwise not terribly interesting literary remarks, but the novelty of the form deserves a look. Then there are…[Read more]

Hi Alexandra,

Books such as Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer come to mind, as do Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel and Charles Dickens: A Life. In general it looks like literary biographies and collections of author letters are most likely to be read for pleasure. A good example is Phyllis Rose’s Parallel Lives: Five Victorian…[Read more]

Hi Alexandra,

Books such as Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer come to mind, as do Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel and Charles Dickens: A Life. In general it looks like literary biographies and collections of author letters are most likely to be read for pleasure. A good example is Phyllis Rose’s Parallel Lives: Five Victorian…[Read more]

Great!

Dear Rhea Riegel:

Taking into consideration the powerful topic of “The World Upside-Down”, I’ll go ahead and submit my proposal in English. Thanks.

Hi Massimilla – I hoped to meet with the conference committee before answering your question, but neither do I want to keep you waiting. I won’t be able to connect with the committee quickly enough, so I would say that you should go ahead and submit your abstract as you want to present it, but also to note whether or not you would be willing to…[Read more]

Hi, my topic would be around Álvaro Cunqueiro, a Spanish A-vanguard author, who practices Magical Realism and who grounds his work into the World-up Side Down, parody, irony and humor (Bakhtin, etc.). Do you accept abstract (and paper) in Spanish? Thanks. Massimilla Pialorsi-Lewis.

Hi Marilyn – it is an interdisciplinary conference so politics is fine. The session that is open for paper submissions is “Carnival and Satire” so if your topic fits that, we would welcome your abstract. Either way, we hope you can attend the conference in April!

I have a political topic for a “world upside down.”
It has nothing to do with literature but with political stances taken by literary organizations that I believe are unnecessarily naive and misguided.

Marilyn Shapiro