Category Archives: books

Glory Be to [Insert Name of Country Here]

books, internet, politics, writing 2023.06.05 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

AI and Its Effect on the Book Publishing Industry (goodereader.com)Julie Plec and More WGA Members Detail Writers Strike Negotiations, Demand Streamers to Release Ratings: ‘We’re Mad’ (Variety via msn.com) One personal project that always seems to be on the back burner for me is an examination of the fiction written during the Cold War in the Soviet bloc countries. My interest in this started about a decade ago, after Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son won the Pulitzer. For his novel, Johnson did extensive studies…

Shadowed

books, personal 2021.01.25 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

The recent phenomenon of book publishers putting relatively high-prestige titles on deep discount for their digital versions — for anywhere from ninety-cents to four bucks — has been both a blessing and a curse for me. I definitely appreciate being able to pick up books on the cheap, and in addition to boosting my pleasure-reading piles for whenever I have the time to get to those (I was practicing tsundoku long before I heard that word used to describe it), I’ve found some genuinely useful…

Giant

books, personal, teaching 2020.03.02 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

James Lipton, ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ Host, Dies at 93 (Daily Variety) I started teaching at around the end of Chappelle’s Show being part of the larger American cultural zeitgeist, so when Dave Chappelle broke his silence after leaving his Comedy Central show by appearing on Inside the Actors Studio, I pretty much had to watch. I’d heard of Inside the Actors Studio and seen commercials about it, but I hadn’t paid it much attention since I’ve never really been a film person. Something about…

RIPped Hearts

books, commercials, personal, sports 2020.01.27 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Kobe Bryant death spurs Planters to pause promo of Mr. Peanut funeral ads (CNET)Nancy Drew seemingly has been killed off in a comic, just in time for her 90th birthday (CNN) It probably goes without saying that Wisconsin is football country, and eight days ago I was tempted to tweet a GIF of that one scene from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope after I saw the score of the NFC championship game and realized that the Packers weren’t going to the Super Bowl.…

Skin in the Game

books, personal 2020.01.20 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

One of the least rewarding parts of my graduate classes in English was having to read reviews of new books of literary criticism. Especially after an undergraduate class I took with a professor who helped shape my own pedagogical approaches, it was hard to read those reviews and not see how the reviewers were using the opportunity that review provided them — hardly a small one — to promote their own careers. At some point in nearly every review I read, the reviewer would invariably…