Electric Lit’s Favorite Novels of 2021

When it comes to great novels, this year felt like an embarrassment of riches. The books collected here are ambitious—in intellect, in scope, in subject matter, and in size. Some are perfect encapsulations of the unique problems of our time, while others illuminate the human threads that connect us through time and space. Novelists often […] The post Electric Lit’s Favorite Novels of 2021 appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-16 12:05:00 UTC ]

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8 Novels Using Television As a Plot Device

Writing about pop culture and current technology is always a gamble, pitting critique of the present against longevity, a story that will still feel relevant after we’re gone. But for novelists (present company included) who were exposed to the Real World before the, um, real world, reality TV... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-09-27 11:00:00 UTC ]
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15 Small Press Books to Read This Fall

As we move into the fall reading season, deeply imagined short stories and inventive linked essays are having a moment alongside novels. What’s thrilling about the books coming out from small presses is the breadth of range—there are intentional and accidental murders, family drama and... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-09-26 11:15:00 UTC ]
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9 Historical Novels by 20th-Century Queer Writers

Queer people have been writing historical fiction since before queerness existed—by which I mean, since before it was hammered into an antithesis to heterosexuality during the long nineteenth century. By the turn of the twentieth, queers looking to write about the past had to grapple with new,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-09-25 11:00:00 UTC ]
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An AI Game of Thrones prequel? No wonder George RR Martin’s raining ice and fire on ChatGPT | Tim Adams

Authors have entered a war over words with OpenAI for using their books as ‘training’ feedstockBattles between human and artificial intelligence are no longer science fiction. The strikes in Hollywood led by the united guilds of actors and screenwriters have a common, intangible enemy: the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-09-23 15:03:31 UTC ]
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In Times of Environmental Collapse, Storytelling is a Form of Repair

In Alissa Hattman’s debut novel Sift, the world, at first, appears hostile to life, nearly uninhabitable. Skies darken with toxins and smoke. Food, especially produce, is scarce. Drinking water is limited, a result of rivers and other natural bodies that have been poisoned. Fires rage and a... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-09-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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A Trans Woman’s Shapeshifting Love Story

Aurora Mattia’s debut novel The Fifth Wound is a fantastical journey through the formulation of one trans woman’s truth. Mattia’s own recapitulation as protagonist Aurora aka @silicone_angel bridges the gap between ancient Greece, Covid-era Brooklyn, and the rolling fields of Iowa searching to... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-09-01 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Growing Up in a Chinese Restaurant in Atlantic City

Jane Wong’s memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City is a feast of a book. It’s about hunger—the hungers of the body, of addiction, of history. Brilliant, gutting, and funny, she writes with such range about growing up in her family’s Chinese restaurant in Atlantic City as their reach for the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-08-31 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Lessons and Carols for Recovery and Redemption

John West’s Lessons and Carols is a lyric memoir of recovery, parenting, loss, and hope, which is also periodically quite funny (ex. the first line of the first Lesson, “Caring for this baby has taught me new ways to resent.”) Hopscotching through time, the memoir shows us West’s first, early... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-08-18 11:00:00 UTC ]
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‘A smorgasbord of unlikability’: the authors helping ‘sad girl lit’ grow up

In this post-Fleabag world, publishing has become obsessed with the inner turmoils of messy millennials – but isn’t it time they pulled themselves together? Meet the novelists subverting the clichesYou’ve probably come across this woman: she is unfulfilled in her career, has been abandoned by at... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-08-08 15:19:43 UTC ]
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“How To Care for a Human Girl” is the Novel for the Post-Roe Era 

Ashley Wurzbacher’s debut novel How To Care for a Human Girl jumps with both feet into the debate over reproductive rights. When two sisters find themselves pregnant not long after their mother’s death, Jada choses an abortion, while Maddie drifts into the sticky embrace of a crisis pregnancy... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-08-08 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Here is the 2023 Booker Prize longlist!

The freshly announced “Booker’s dozen” of titles longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize is making its way around the literary internet, so let’s see what the morning tides have brought in. There are four debut novelists on the list, and Irish writers nabbed a record four out of the 13 nominations... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-01 14:43:06 UTC ]
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Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist

Previously nominated authors Sebastian Barry, Tan Twan Eng and Paul Murray join 13-strong field including four debuts• Irish writers, debuts – and groundbreaking sci-fi: the Booker longlist in depthA longlist of 13 “original and thrilling” books offering “startling portraits of the current” are... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-08-01 08:00:00 UTC ]
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Secrets Live Inside My Son’s Ears

The Oracle by Joanna Pearson You name it, Lola’s found it in someone’s ear. A green Skittle, a watch battery, the tarnished back of a gold earring, a bunched-up bit of mint floss, a Lego head. Insects—yes, of course. Roaches of various sizes, a wasp, a small beetle. Hardened ear wax (cerumen,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-31 11:05:00 UTC ]
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I Can’t Offer Up My Culture for Consumption

As I prepare for the paperback launch of my debut novel The Girls in Queens, I share with a group of writers and artists that I’m putting together a Book Club Kit. This has become a fairly common digital offering; a colorful PDF of brief insights from the author, a recipe or two related to... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-25 11:12:00 UTC ]
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Married to the mob: the rise of the smartphone in fiction

They interrupt narrative and disrupt plot – no wonder novelists have been slow to warm to mobile phones. But a new generation is putting technology at the heart of their workWhat do you call a phone when it rings in a fictional world? “Mobile” and “cell” are old, “smartphone” is almost a... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-07-22 10:00:09 UTC ]
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7 Novels That Reveal Librarians Behind the Shelves

It isn’t unusual for libraries to feature prominently in novels; novelists, after all, are merely adult versions of the little people who fell in love with books at public libraries. But what of librarians? The keepers of the books, the ones who know you prefer romance, science fiction, or... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2023-07-20 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Sarah Silverman and novelists sue ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for ingesting their books

Ask ChatGPT about comedian Sarah Silverman’s memoir “The Bedwetter” and the artificial intelligence chatbot can come up with a detailed synopsis of every part of the book Continue reading at ABC News

[ ABC News | 2023-07-12 22:32:35 UTC ]
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Sarah Silverman and novelists sue ChatGPT-maker OpenAI for ingesting their books

Ask ChatGPT about comedian Sarah Silverman’s memoir “The Bedwetter” and the artificial intelligence chatbot can come up with a detailed synopsis of every part of the book Continue reading at ABC News

[ ABC News | 2023-07-12 22:32:31 UTC ]
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RIP to one of the great horny novelists of the 20th century, Milan Kundera.

I was surprised to read this morning that Milan Kundera, the eminent Czech novelist best known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, died yesterday at the age of 94. Mainly because I thought he was already dead. For a generation of literary types (Gen X in particular), Kundera was the cool,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-07-12 15:34:43 UTC ]
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The Morning After: The Amazon Prime Day deals worth your time and money

It’s back and here to ruin our savings and increase the gadgets in our homes. Yes, Amazon Prime Day isn’t entirely about headphones, tablets and wearables, but for Engadget staff… well, it feels like it is. Prime Day deals on tech are typically only matched by Black Friday and Cyber Monday... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-07-11 11:15:13 UTC ]
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