There is something unique about genre fiction. Perhaps it is the notion that great fiction should offer an escape. Perhaps it is with only these types of stories that true escapism can be attained some small path to temporary nirvana not found in other genres. That’s what we like to […]
As a middle-aged, monogamous white CIS woman, it may seem strange that I’m recommending LGBTQA books in the scifi/fantasy genre to LitStack readers. But at the risk of seeming insincere, it doesn’t matter to me if the sexuality of players in a tale are straight, gay, non-binary, gender fluid or […]
When you put yourself out ‘there’ as a writer, when you lasso the title of ‘writer,’ inevitably you are asked your opinion. You are also confronted by a litany of folks who make excuses. Now, I’m not adverse to the excuse bit. I hear and speak them daily. But what […]
Here are a few posters and quotes that remind us why we love books. Which is your favorites, LitStackers? Tell us about them in the comments below. Happy reading!
It’s been said that families are like fudge—mostly sweet with a few nuts. If we’re lucky, the balance between the two is just right, but even then, we have moments when we wonder what it would be like to have a different set of relatives. Reading gives us that opportunity. […]
Death and taxes, as the old cliche goes. Both are unavoidable, and while we won’t give you our political opinions on paying taxes, we will say that it’s never easy or expected when we lose someone we love. Even if that “someone” is known to us from afar, from the […]
A few years back I was asked by a dear friend if I teach the classics and I answered with an emphatic “No!” He scrunched up his face, tilted his head to the side and replied “Why not?” I sighed and then prepared myself for explaining why I feel like […]
The Varying Poverties of Now In the appendix to his brief but radiant 2010 manifesto ‘Reality Hunger’—a supremely confident and practically pedagogical collage of quotations and personal observations published in order to define a perceived new age of literature—David Shields writes with this kind of over-excited, unnecessarily aggressive tone. He’s […]
Sometimes, when we love a great book, we feel the smallest bit of dissatisfaction at the idea that one, perhaps two books, will be all we get. It kind of bums us out. We know we can always go back and reread, but it’s the lingering ideas of what would […]
Pushcart Prize 38: Best of the Small Presses, ed. by Bill Henderson Now in its thirty-eighth year, the Pushcart Prize is the annual selection of important stories, poems essays and memoirs. Culled each year from nominations made by hundreds of publications, the series has become the standard for contemporary prose […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.