Literary retellings of classics have exploded in the past few years, not least thanks to BookTok's enduring love for Madeline Miller and her feminist takes on the Greek myths. Reworkings and updates of well-known novels, myths and legends combine familiarity and freshness in a way that seems to load the dice for commercial success, from beloved old Bridget Jones (a take on Pride and Prejudice) to A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes, which takes the tale of the Trojan War and gives readers the view of the women involved. It's extending to TV and film as well, with the likes of "Bridgerton" and "Mr Malcolm's List" injecting Austenean tropes with fun, modern and inclusive twists.
Links of the week December 18 2023 (51)
The Bookseller - Comment - Same old stories
Lessons from 23 Years as a Self-Publishing Novelist | Jane Friedman
After four years of hard work with a well-known New York City literary agent, around Christmas 1999, I gave up on the traditional route and decided to publish my first novel, a Silicon Valley cyberpunk thriller called Acts of the Apostles, myself.
WATCH: Ursula K. Le Guin on Writing Fantasy as a Young Girl ‹ Literary Hub
"I was free in a way that I think it's always been rare for a child to be free."
The new queen of spy fiction: how Ava Glass went from murder reporting to the bestseller list | Books | The Guardian
Ava Glass thought she had made her first work friend. An American now living in London, she had just started her first job as a civil servant, working in counter-terrorism communications. She was waiting for security clearance when, one morning, about three weeks in, she got talking to a colleague in the kitchen. The woman was in her late 20s, and also new, she said. Glass showed her where the teaspoons were kept. A few days later, Glass ran into the woman again at her favourite cafe. "She was very curious about my background, my life, what my family did back in the US," Glass recalls. "‘Your brother was in the military? How interesting!' I just didn't cotton on to it ... Then she disappeared completely."
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘García Márquez taught me the exquisite power of stories’ | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | The Guardian
My earliest reading memory
I was about eight, reading a Famous Five book by Enid Blyton, in the light-filled room downstairs in our house on the campus of the University of Nigeria. I learned to read earlier, but this is the earliest of my abiding memories of reading: the feeling of singular pleasure, page after page, eager to solve the mystery in the dungeon but unwilling for the story to end.