A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people—morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners—who work in it and what led them there. We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that ... more >
Harlequin Launches New Fiction Imprint – Harlequin announced yesterday that they have started a new imprint – Graydon House – that is focused on women’s fiction in trade and hardcover formats. It appears that the publisher wants to establish a clear home for those books that tackle relationship issues without being ... more >
Dead White Guys is a timely defense of the great books, arriving in the middle of a national debate about the fate of these books in high schools and universities around the country. Burriesci shows how the great books can enrich our lives as individuals, as citizens, and in our ... more >
Report: Senior Uber exec threatened to dig up dirt on journalists – So apparently stalking and doxxing have gone mainstream. According to a story in Buzzfeed and discussed in this Gigaom piece, Uber’s Senior Vice President of Business Emil Michael proposed holding female journalist Sarah Lacy “personally responsible” for any ... more >
In response to last week’s guest post by Zoe Brouthers on feminine sacrifice in Romance, author Moriah Jovan wrote a very thoughtful comment on the role that faith plays in so many people’s lives, despite its marginalization in mainstream Romance not tagged as inspirational. What especially caught my attention was this ... more >
Do Critics Make Good Novelists? – This week’s Bookends column — between Daniel Mendelsohn and Leslie Jamison — is a pretty interesting contemplation of the relationship between literary critic and novelist. Mendelsohn seems to suggest that critics are unsuited to writing fiction, while Jamison suggests that the prejudice against critics ... more >