Fiction

A recent Nielsen BookData and GfK Entertainment report on global book sales for the first eight months of the year shows "rising revenues in fiction, while sales of nonfiction books are declining in many regions. The TikTok community BookTok is playing an increasingly important role."

How changing technology motivated a former naval intelligence officer to revisit his dreams of writing fiction.

In The Human Stain Philip Roth describes the Iliad as the source of European literature. All European literature starts, he says, with a fight. It's a fight between two great and powerful men: Agamemnon, commander in chief of the Greek army which is laying siege to Troy, and Achilles, the greatest of the Greek fighters.  Read more

Les Cowan, author of the David Hidalgo crime thriller series, considers the importance of setting

Are you a country girl or a city boy? Would a week in Las Vegas be a dream or a nightmare? What about a holiday in the Highlands? Is the city exciting and full of possibilities or a world of dangers just waiting to pounce? As in life, so in art - place is important.  Read more

What happens when "bigger is better" becomes an ethos for an entire society? From SUVs that will never see a dirt road to McMansions that could fit several families, American culture right now abounds with an excess of, well, excess. The normalization of this can distort priorities, creating a sense that something far larger than what we need is what we want.  Read more