Turns Out Countess Tolstoy Was Quite A Writer Herself

Ron Rosenbaum: “At times one could almost say she’s … Tolstoyan. And when it comes to love and sex, she shows her husband up for the demented fool he became. Specifically, Sofiya pulls off a remarkable structural feat in mirroring [The Kreutzer Sonata‘s] wife-murder plot from the point of view of the murdered wife. And she does it with prose that (in English at least) comes across as graceful, emotionally intuitive, and heartbreaking.”

Literary Sexism Isn’t Dead – Yet

“It seems that the genre McCullough is most beloved for may be the very reason for the disrespect in memoriam. Romance is maligned by literary critics and often stigmatised as the lightweight reading of bored housewives. It also happens to be a genre populated almost entirely with female authors, which goes some ways to explaining why it’s not taken more seriously – even when it remains amongst the most successful in publishing.”

Top Posts From AJBlogs For 02.01.15

Super Bowl Jazz
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2015-02-01

The Madness of Kelly Link
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2015-02-01

Introducing The 21st Century Musician
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2015-01-31

What is “The Hard Problem”?
AJBlog: Plain EnglishPublished 2015-01-31

The wrong man
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2015-01-30

Make it new (or don’t bother)
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2015-01-30

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Indies Are Back With Force (And Bidding Wars) At This Year’s Sundance

“One factor in this year’s resurgence of sales may be the magic glow shed on Sundance by the fact that two of its 2014 selections – Whiplash and Boyhood, by festival regular Richard Linklater – are among the best picture contenders at the Academy Awards. But the marketplace has changed, with distributors hungry to buy titles for video-on-demand services.”