Frank O’Connor, one of the masters of the form, was repeatedly asked what differentiated a short story from a novel or novella, and over the course of his career he come up with some interesting answers. For example, interviewed by the Paris Review he suggested that one of the crucial dividing lines was not length, [...]
How do you choose what writers to read? Or more specifically, how do you choose from those writers that you know you’re ’supposed’ to read? The dead and dusty ones from the canon.
I take shortcuts, which is probably the reason why Cervantes has never darkened my door. Short stories have many virtues, but they’re unparalleled [...]
One of the ideas behind setting up ‘Is there a book in this blog?’ was to create a space where contributors could jump right in and make off-the-cuff observations about books/writers without the need to build up a structured review piece (there are plenty of those elsewhere in Three Monkeys Online).
With that spirit in mind, [...]
‘You couldn’t make it up’, screams the tabloid tv presenter as he recounts the surreal situation of Santa Claus and his helper elves being threatened by angry families in a run-down amusement park in the cultural wilderness of Kent.
Far more entertaining, though starting from a similar run-down amusement park premise, is George Saunders brilliant Civilwarland [...]
Sarah Loud,head of digital publishing at Pan Macmillan, has published a much talked about Publisher’s manifesto for the 21st Century over at The Digatilist.
It’s a long piece, and well worth reading. It starts with a fairly common position, that in this social-media/internet/mobile entertainment world the days of the book are numbered.
“More and more books [...]
Sad news was reported on Friday, that American writer David Foster Wallace has apparently comitted suicide, at the age of 46.
TMO’s very own Shane Barry wrote two perceptive pieces on DFW back in January 2006 (link), approaching the American writer’s work with caution through his collection of stories Oblivion.
We reprint the second piece here:
Two stories [...]
Never judge a book by its cover. Sage advice, but what about its title? I approached Jonathan Lethem’s slim short-story collection Men and Cartoons less than enthusiastically, resigned to reading it because it was a) a gift, and b) short.
The problem? The title, plus the promise that more than one story would concern itself with superherose, or [...]
A short selection of our favourite lit blogs
For the full list go to our literary blog links page.
