Is the Book You’re Reading Literary or Genre Fiction? A 100% Definitive Guide

1. Check the cover for clues. Literary fiction will have the title in Helvetica along with amorphous shapes in shades of that year’s Pantone color.  Genre fiction will have a little cutout showing the face of either a wizard or a rakish duke. It opens to reveal the whole picture, and they’re standing in the […] The post Is the Book You’re Reading Literary or Genre Fiction? A 100% Definitive Guide appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2025-02-07 12:15:00 UTC ]

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These Middle-Grade Novels Are Some of the Most Formally Innovative Works of Our Time

When I took my copy of Lemony Snicket’s The Carnivorous Carnival up to the check-out line at Barnes and Noble, the cashier flipped through the book and paused.  She was sorry, she said, after a couple more puzzled page flips. There appeared to be a misprint. She called an employee in the kid’s... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-24 11:00:17 UTC ]
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8 Beer and Book Pairings

It’s a cliché among authors that we write the books we wish existed, but two of the many reasons I set out to write The Lager Queen of Minnesota was because I wanted to read literary fiction set in a brewery, and frankly, I also wanted a reason to bum around the country researching contemporary... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-19 11:00:19 UTC ]
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Mira Jacob Recommends 5 Inspiring Books That Aren’t By Men

It doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say that Mira Jacob’s latest book Good Talk is a blueprint for a kinder world. In this graphic memoir, Jacob details a lifetime of difficult conversations—about politics, about race, about love and relationships. Seeing her handle these tricky talks,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-18 11:00:20 UTC ]
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12 Novels about Historical Women to Inspire a Better Future

The Spanish philosopher and poet George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” As a genre, historical fiction allows us to shuttle back in time to stand in the shoes, clogs, chopines, and go-go boots of people—real and imagined—to consider the... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-15 11:00:13 UTC ]
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In Memory of Brazenhead, the Secret Bookstore That Felt Like a Magical Portal

In a popular trope present most often in YA novels, a character finds a secret key to another world. The key is rarely literal. More often, it’s an action as banal and everyday as leaning against a train platform barrier, walking into a phone booth, or looking for a winter coat in the back of... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-12 11:02:44 UTC ]
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The New National Literature of Canada Is Being Written by Women

As an American-born literature scholar and writer who became a permanent resident of Canada last year, I’ve spent a lot of time recently wondering how to differentiate between American literature and Canadian literature. Growing up in the 1980s, I saw these two nations as not just contiguous but... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-10 11:00:48 UTC ]
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This Novel About the Publishing Industry in 1987 Shows How Little Has Changed

Eve Rosen is an aspiring writer. She’s an editorial assistant at a literary imprint, but the office seems far friendlier to WASP-y men than to Jewish women like her. When her boss’s star writer, the longtime New Yorker reporter Henry Gray, invites Eve to spend the summer of 1987 as his research... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-09 14:00:32 UTC ]
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The Battle of the Book Cover

Perhaps the defining question of any book lover’s life is: should you read the hardcover or wait for it to come out in paperback? There are countless considerations to take into account when defining yourself as a Hardcover Person or a Paperback Type. Are you a weakling, or given to prancing... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-09 11:00:22 UTC ]
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What to Expect When You’re Expecting Evil

Literary fiction is increasingly borrowing from the horror genre to explore the fears and anxieties of modern motherhood. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-07-06 09:00:14 UTC ]
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Tochi Onyebuchi Recommends African Visions of the Future by Women and Nonbinary Authors

Tochi Onyebuchi’s young adult books, the duology Beasts Made of Night and Crown of Thunder, are fantasy novels with a Nigeria-influenced setting. His upcoming War Girls is set in a post-nuclear, post-climate change Nigeria of 2172. Riot Baby, his first novel for adults (also forthcoming), is a... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-04 11:00:10 UTC ]
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How a Comic Book About Feral Elves Got Me Through Middle School

We were mixing papier mache in art class. It was seventh grade. I was twelve. I liked that muddy mix, liked how it felt on my hands, liked spreading it on the balloon that had been distributed to me so that I could make a mask. I began to sing under my breath. I sang […] The post How a Comic... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-03 11:00:56 UTC ]
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How the New York Public Library Brought Novels to Instagram With Unexpectedly Huge Results

The idea makes practically no sense at all. Full works of long-form literary fiction uploaded to ... Instagram? And specifically to Instagram Stories, a format known for its fast and fleeting posts about nights on the town and outfits of the day? But the New York Public Library pulled it off,... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2019-06-14 20:20:07 UTC ]
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BookExpo 2019: Literary Fiction Gets the Buzz

Indie booksellers raved about both fall/winter fiction and nonfiction offerings at BookExpo, but literary fiction with plots inspired by today's news headlines is what they were most excited about. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Creative writing graduates will 'never make a living as novelists', says Self

Will Self has declared literature to be "morphing into a giant quilting exercise", suggesting that no current creative writing graduates will make a living from literary fiction. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Genre Fiction Is Finding a Place At Indie Bookstores

Indie bookstores aren't known for stocking a wide assortment of genre fiction titles, but booksellers are finding that it's time for that to change. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-01-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Late-Night TV Hosts Give Publicity-Starved Novelists the Star Treatment

TV coverage of literary fiction has dwindled, but Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers are exceptions. “Who would have guessed that a 700-page novel would be on national TV?” one publishing executive said. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2018-12-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Graham Norton: ‘In a world going to hell in a handcart, Ireland is a wonderful beacon’

The chatshow host’s new novel centres on Irish lives dominated by shame and repression. Yet, after ‘decades of darkness’, the country’s legalisation of abortion and gay marriage have made him hopefulGraham Norton’s second novel, A Keeper, had not gone to press before this interview, so his... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2018-10-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Nurturing the literary landscape

Benedicte Page reflects on the current status of literary fiction and the role of independent publishers in the book industry. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-08-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'Electric Literature' Launches New Series As Counterpoint to 'By the Book'

Electric Literature has launched a new biweekly series, in partnership with FSG's MCD imprint and as part of its "Read More Women" campaign, that it bills as a feminist corrective to the 'New York Times' column "By the Book." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-07-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Literary fiction and Michelle Obama top Super Thursday picks

Super Thursday will fall on 4th October this year, The Bookseller can reveal, when a whopping 544 new hardbacks will be hitting shelves—40 more than on last year’s equivalent day—all vying for a slice of the lucrative Christmas book market. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-07-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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