on (the) Words (of others)
Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, and Other Written Words (not by me)
Literary Movements and Genre
Here is a pet-peeve of mine: Genre fiction still treated as a trash-pile with only an occasional winner (16 Jan 2010). Science fiction and fantasy are still treated as a pitiful quagmire which drowns good stories. Have these critics even paid attention to all the pop-lit books that rehash the same self-denigrating plot?
Fratire versus subversive literature (15 Feb 2010). Fratire is a genre that celebrates the immature aspects of the male mind, that delights in breaking the PC rules, and seeks to speak out against the 'feminization' of the masculine. Tonight, though, I could not wonder if fratire is to subversive literature what torture-porn is to splatterpunk; a second[ rate]-cousin meant to actually popularize the unpopular.
Literary Technique
Lampshade Hanging (23 Nov 2009). When an author does something dumb or preposterous, and then makes sure you know that he knows that it was dumb. Theoretically you will forgive him for it.
My favorites of the Decade 2000-2009, Part 1 (TV Shows and Books) (19 Dec 2009). I break down a little over thirty of my favorite things form the past decade. The first part is half about my favorite books.
Novels
- Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (Sep 21 2009).
- Edgar Rich Burrough's At the Earth's Core and Pellucidar.
- Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
- Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.
- Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.
- Lord Dunsany's The Pleasures of a Futurescope
- Young-Ha Kim's I Have the Right to Destroy Myself
- Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
- Stephenie Meyer's Twilight
- Christopher Moore's Fool.
- Chuck Palahniuk's Rant.
- Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites.
- John Ringo's Emerald Sea.
- John Ringo's There Will Be Dragons.
- Jeremy C Shipp's Vacation.
- Neal Stephenson's Anathem.
- Neal Stephenson's The Big U.
- Monica Stirling's Sigh for a Strange Land.
- G.P. Taylor's Tersias the Oracle.
Short Stories
- Graham Greene's "The Destructors".
Short Story Collections
Poetry
Plays
- Allen Ginsberg's Death and Fame
.
Graphic Novels
- Brian Fies' Mom's Cancer
- Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (as adapted by Mike Carey et al)
A (Nearly) Random Sampling of Favorites & Essentials
House of Leaves by Danielewski. Cory Doctorow. Various other corporate-punk and cyberpunk writers. Neal Stephenson especially. Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities, Pickwick Papers, Christmas Carol by others Dickens. Wild Swans at Coole by Yeats. Chuck Palahniuk. Simon Green. Christopher Moore. Various by Heinlein. Lord of the Rings. Neverwhere, American Gods and Stardust by Gaiman. Sandman. Ambrose Bierce. Hellblazer. The Amazing Spiderman. The Philosophical Strangler. Douglas Adams. Mad magazine. Carlton Mellick III. Ray Bradbury. PHILIP K DICK. The Vampire Hunter D series. Stuff by Burroughs, Haggard, Verne, Wells, and that Scarlet Pimpernel woman. Thomas Hardy. Iron Man. James Joyce. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Dostoevsky. Horror by King, Kethum, Keene, Laymon, Matheson, Poe and Lovecraft. Joe R Lansdale. Good Omens and Pratchett's various Discworld trappings. P.G. Wodehouse. Bill Shakespeare. The Road by McCarthy. Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. George R. R. Martin. The Walking Dead. Harlan Ellison. John Campbell. That Vogt fellow. Plato. Nietzsche.
Wordy Links
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database has lots of user submitted information on your favorite SF stuff.
The Online Books Page Presents Banned Books Online. Includes many links to books you can read for free, as well as discussions about why these books were banned. Could be an excellent resource for teachers.
While not the most scientific thing in the world, Books that Make You Dumb is a fun website that plots SAT/ACT style scores against favorite books on Facebook.
The Best Things in Life Are Free
"Words" Edition
There are actually several good sources for getting free text online (legally). Arguably the greatest of these is the Project Gutenberg collection. Another worthy place is the Bartleby.com Library. My favorite for easy of browsing and strength of collection is the University of Adelaide eText Library.
Annother general resource, that seems to carry the same texts as Project Gutenberg, except in several digital formats (rtf, pdf, etc) for those that do not like just plain-text and HTML: ManyBooks.net.
You also have The Internet Sacred Text Archive which specializes on books about religion, mythology, folklore and other esoteric subjects.
If you are more into the sf/fantasy side of things, then you should get over to Free Speculative Fiction Online. More precisely you can find some good stuff on Baen's Free Library. I have a special place in my heart for this one, since Baen is one of the leaders in e-book promotion today and their fans love them for it.
Horror Masters has a good selection of short stories, all or almost all in pdf format (despite the title, some are not really horror, though a lot of the great old horror authors are represented).
Many individual authors have some free stuff on their own home pages. It would take too long to link to it all, but many of my favorites (like Cory Doctorow) have a good handfulf of free text to read. Here are some writers not listed above that have a good amount of free material:
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The only request is that you let me know if you are using something from this page (mostly for my own curiosity). This license only applies to original works by W. Doug Bolden (i.e. me). All quoted and referenced works, be they movies or books or other websites or whatever, are subject to their original license or copyright and are the property of their owners. I have made a strong effort to properly attribute them, so please respect me and them by doing the same.
since: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:59:23 -0600
"The hidden is greater than the seen."
