Diana Peterfreund Talks with PopMatters About Bitch Media’s Top 100 Feminist YA List Debacle
My interview with YA author Diana Peterfreund about the Bitch Media feminist YA list is up at PopMatters. Here’s a snippet. How did you feel about the Bitch list at first? What was it like to have your book make the cut, before and after the debacle? I was initially very pleased—it seemed like a great, diverse list of books, and I remember tweeting at the time about how many on the list I’d read and how many were unfortunately still sitting on my TBR pile. Why do you think books like...
Read MoreInterview with Scott Westerfeld About Bitch’s 100 Feminist YA List
Last week, I did an interview with award-winning author Scott Westerfeld about the Bitch Media 100 Feminist YA list. It’s up at PopMatters now. Here’s a snippet. How did you feel about the Bitch list at first? What was it like to have Uglies make the cut, before and after the the debacle? Bitch is one of those iconic ‘90s magazines, like Wired or Bust or Sassy (which started in the late ‘80s, but still). Having Bitch give a shout-out to YA was great, and being on the list was...
Read MorePopMatters Best Books of 2010: Behind the Scenes
End of year lists are fluid; the best book you read in January may not make a list made in December, even if it is, in many ways, a better book than one you read in November. Stellar prose, tight plotting, even memorable characters are not enough to keep a book in mind for three months, let alone 12. This may seem harsh, but for a book to truly belong on a Best Of list, it has to meet one extra, often forgotten criterion: it must be engaging. “Best books” must capture the reader on not just...
Read MoreAt PopMatters: Where Are Barnes & Noble’s Nooks for Nook Readers?
I have a new-ish piece over @ PopMatters on B&N, Amazon, and the power of the brick & mortar store. Click through to read more! Barnes & Noble has one big advantage over Amazon, Sony, Apple, and pretty much every other e-reader out there: brick and mortar bookstores. Sure, the Kindle is available at Staples, Target, and even airports, but these lack the ambience, the bookishness, of a Barnes & Noble. Even with the gift sections and the toys, most Barnes & Nobles offer a cozy...
Read MoreSalman Rushdie on Gods in ‘Luka and the Fire of Life’ @ PopMatters
Earlier this month, I saw Booker Prize winning author Salman Rushdie at a discussion with fairy tale scholar Maria Tatar in Cambridge, MA. Asked about his use of gods in literature and Luka, the British novelist—and knight—had a few interesting things to say: “[The] great pantheons were once living religions. The Greek gods were once the religion of Greece, the Roman gods ditto, and the Norse gods the same and the Aztec gods the same and so on. And they had priests and temples and no...
Read MoreMixed: Two Books on Multiracial Kids, Two Different Takes @ PopMatters
I have a new review up @PopMatters, about two recently stumbled across books on being mixed race that spoke to me as a parent and a biracial kid. Here’s the intro: My son is not biracial—not in the true sense of the word. He’s only a quarter Indian, just enough to have my dark eyes and hair, and hopefully some facility with Hindi. Chances are, he won’t marry an Indian, though it’s possible he’ll fall for someone half-Indian, or quarter Indian, as mixed race couples become...
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