Thomas Harris introduced the world to Hannibal Lecter, and and according to Bill Sheehan from the Washington Post, pop culture would never be the same.

From time to time, a work of fiction appears that exerts a powerful influence on the culture of the day, generating admiration and imitation alike. After John le Carre published “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” in 1974, spy stories about the hunt for a Soviet mole proliferated. Stephen King’s “The Shining” inspired a host of lesser novels that featured paranormal children and such titles as “The Piercing” and “The Suiting,” a phenomenon that serious horror fans referred to as “The Gerunding.” Further back, Robert Traver made what was then an unusual decision: using a real murder trial as the basis of his 1958 novel, “Anatomy of a Murder.” The legal thriller that we know today arose directly from that decision.

Thomas Harris did not invent the serial killer novel, but he elevated it. His best work — for me, that would be the interconnected novels “Red Dragon” and “The Silence of the Lambs” — displays a level of craftsmanship that rarely falters. More than that, these are deeply empathetic books in which horrific acts stand side by side with subtle, sympathetic portraits of the damaged souls who commit them. In Harris’s hands, the roots of incomprehensible violence become shockingly, often heartbreakingly clear.

Harris began his career as a crime writer for the Associated Press in the early 1970s. His debut as a novelist was the 1975 publication of “Black Sunday.” A bestseller in the mode of Frederick Forsyth, it remains the odd man out in Harris’s modest body of work. A novel of terrorism rooted in Middle Eastern politics, it tells of an attack on the Super Bowl by a rogue pilot flying a weaponized Goodyear Blimp. Though a bit dated, it remains a solidly entertaining narrative but gives little hint of the fictional transformation to come.

That transformation began with the appearance in 1981 of “Red Dragon,” a crime novel unlike anything that had come before. Novels dealing with serial killers were certainly nothing new and include Ellery Queen’s “Cat of Many Tails” (1949), Lawrence Sanders’s “The First Deadly Sin” (1973) and Shane Stevens’s masterful “By Reason of Insanity” (1979). “Red Dragon” transcended them all.

The plot is relatively simple. An unknown culprit is murdering entire families in the southern United States. Will Graham, a retired FBI agent with an unusual ability to enter the darkest corners of the human mind, is called in to investigate. Will’s journey takes him into the orbit of two very different murderers: the lost and damaged Francis Dolarhyde, and the brilliant Hannibal Lecter, who has since become one of the great fictional boogeymen of our time. The investigation that follows is one of the most enthralling in modern fiction, and one of the most tragic.

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The firebrand writer died unexpectedly over the weekend at the age of 37. Emma Green from The Atlantic takes a look at the life of a Christian blogger, author, and joyful troublemaker online.

Rachel Held Evans died on Saturday from massive brain swelling after being hospitalized for an infection, according to her family. She was 37. Evans leaves behind two little kids, a husband, and four books to her name. Her death has been met with an up-swelling of grief and appreciation from loyal readers, famous pastors who sparred with her, and, especially, young people who saw her as a mentor.

This bevy of tributes is a testament to the distinctive role Evans developed over her decade-and-a-half-long writing career: She was part of a vanguard of progressive-Christian women who fought to change the way Christianity is taught and perceived in the United States. Especially for people who have felt hurt by or unwelcome in the Church, Evans provided a safe shore, full of encouragement and defiant acceptance. Many of those who befriended her and followed her work have, in turn, become well-known figures in the progressive-Christian world, such as Reverend Jes Kast and Austin Channing Brown. Evans helped forge new space for diverse voices who are denied authority or power in the Christian world—a legacy that will last far beyond her death… Read full post on The Atlantic

Discover Rachel Held Evans‘ Kindle books:

A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband ‘Master’

4.5 stars – 706 reviews

Kindle price: $4.99

What is “biblical womanhood” . . . really? 

Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

4.6 stars – 552 reviews

Kindle price: 99 cents

Like millions of her millennial peers, Rachel Held Evans didn’t want to go to church anymore. The hypocrisy, the politics, the gargantuan building budgets, the scandals–church culture seemed so far removed from Jesus. Yet, despite her cynicism and misgivings, something kept drawing her back to Church. And so she set out on a journey to understand Church and to find her place in it.

Centered around seven sacraments, Evans’ quest takes readers through a liturgical year with stories about baptism, communion, confirmation, confession, marriage, vocation, and death that are funny, heartbreaking, and sharply honest.

Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions

4.5 stars – 158 reviews

Kindle price: $2.99

How an evolving spiritual journey leads to an unshakeable faith.
Eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial made a spectacle of Christian fundamentalism and brought national attention to her hometown, Rachel Held Evans faced a trial of her own when she began to have doubts about her faith.
In Faith Unraveled, Rachel recounts growing up in a culture obsessed with apologetics, struggling as her own faith unraveled one unexpected question at a time.
In order for her faith to survive, Rachel realizes, it must adapt to change and evolve. Using as an illustration her own spiritual journey from certainty to doubt to faith, Evans challenges you to disentangle your faith from false fundamentals and to trust in a God who is big enough to handle your tough questions.

Anthony Weiner is on the prowl for a book deal and Ian Mohr from the New York Post looks at the publishers that have passed.

Anthony Weiner is trying to transform himself into the next Longfellow.

The serial sexter and former congressman — who is now living in a Bronx halfway house after doing hard time for sexting a teenager — is skulking around Manhattan’s publishing houses trying to shop a book proposal, literary sources say.

So far, interest has been flaccid.

“Every Simon & Schuster imprint has passed,” an insider told The Post.

The project is being repped by the hot downtown boutique agency Foundry Literary + Media — which was behind nonfiction best-sellers by “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah, New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton and “Jersey Shore” star Vinny Guadagnino.

It was unclear what sordid chapters Weiner’s book would address — or if he would write under his nom de perv, Carlos Danger.

But there is certainly enough material in his Shakespearean fall from mayoral candidate to registered Level 1 sex offender.

Not to mention plot twists like his now-defunct marriage to Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and his cameo in the 2016 presidential election as the man who may have sunk the former secretary of state’s chances when the FBI found hundreds of thousands of her emails on a laptop belonging to him.

Weiner, 54, certainly had enough time to write a manuscript as he served 21 months for sending lewd messages to a 15-year-old before being released in February.

Read full post on the New York Post

Jeopardy! star James Holzhauer, whom the Washington Post called “undeniably the most dynamic, unstoppable force in the show’s modern 35-year history,” used a secret weapon—children’s books—to become a game-show millionaire. Karen Springen from Publishers Weekly checked in with the quiz-show phenom about his prepping strategy and his favorite titles:

You told the New York Times that reading kids’ books is part of your Jeopardy! strategy, and said the library’s children’s section is the place to go for books “tailored to make things interesting for uninterested readers.” Which books and series did you find the most helpful?

I particularly enjoyed Zachary Hamby’s books on mythology, and the Classics Illustrated series of literary adaptations.

How did you find the most Jeopardy!-friendly books at the library? For example, did you approach librarians there, or did you just browse randomly?

I started off with the shotgun approach. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself because I was living in Seattle at the time [in 2012] and their libraries actually don’t allow adults in the children’s section without a kid.

So did you bring friends’ kids with you? Or did you just explain to a librarian why you needed to be in the children’s section?

I mostly placed holds on books. When I needed to browse the shelves, I did so quickly and tried not to look like a creeper. No one ever made an issue out of it.

Which library or libraries deserve a shout-out?

I’ve lived in four different cities since I started my Jeopardy! journey [in 2012]: Seattle; San Diego; Naperville, Ill.; and Las Vegas. All had excellent library resources.

What kids’ books and authors were your favorites as a child? Did your parents read you lots of nonfiction, or did you prefer more traditional Dr. Seuss-like stories then?

My parents read me some typical children’s books: Green Eggs and Ham, The Little Engine That Could, Peter Rabbit. But I quickly developed a preference for nonfiction books about baseball and math, by the likes of Bill James and Martin Gardner.

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Best-selling novelist Nora Roberts is suing a Brazilian writer for copyright infringement, alleging that Cristiane Serruya has committed “multi-plagiarism” on a “rare and scandalous” level.

In papers filed Wednesday morning in Rio de Janeiro, where Serruya lives, Roberts called Serruya’s romance books “a literary patchwork, piecing together phrases whose form portrays emotions practically identical to those expressed in the plaintiff’s books.” Citing Brazilian law, Roberts is asking for damages at 3,000 times the value of the highest sale price for any Serruya work mentioned in the lawsuit.

“If you plagiarize, I will come for you,” Roberts told The Associated Press during a recent telephone interview. “If you take my work, you will pay for it and I will do my best to see you don’t write again.”

Roberts added that she would donate any damages from the lawsuit to a literacy program in Brazil.

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Tolkien estate disavows forthcoming film starring Nicholas Hoult.

The family and estate of JRR Tolkien have fired a broadside against the forthcoming film starring Nicholas Hoult as a young version of the author, saying that they “do not endorse it or its content in any way”.

Out in May, and starring Hoult in the title role and Lily Collins as his wife Edith, Tolkien explores “the formative years of the renowned author’s life as he finds friendship, courage and inspiration among a fellow group of writers and artists at school”. Directed by Dome Karukoski, it promises to reveal how “their brotherhood strengthens as they grow up … until the outbreak of the first world war which threatens to tear their fellowship apart”, all of which, according to studio Fox Searchlight, would inspire Tolkien to “write his famous Middle-earth novels”.

On Tuesday morning, the estate and family of Tolkien issued a terse statement in which they announced their “wish to make clear that they did not approve of, authorise or participate in the making of this film”, and that “they do not endorse it or its content in any way”.

Read full post on The Guardian

For judges of the second annual Aspen Words Literary Prize, there was little question who ought to walk away with the award. Colin Dwyer from NPR has the story.

In the end, in fact, the decision was unanimous: The panel picked An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones.

“It’s a book for the long haul,” writer Samrat Upadhyay told NPR. Upadhyay, a finalist for last year’s prize, chaired this year’s panel of judges. And he said that with An American Marriage, Jones managed to craft a novel that’s “going to have a place in the literary imagination for a long time.”

The award, which the nonprofit literary organization Aspen Words doles out in partnership with NPR, offers $35,000 for an exemplary work that deploys fiction to grapple with difficult social issues.

“So many of us who want to write and engage with the issues of the day, we’re encouraged not to. We’re told that that’s not what real art does,” Jones said Thursday at the Morgan Library in New York City, where she accepted the prize. “And an award like this, I think it encourages all of us to keep following the strength of our convictions.”

Buy Tayari Jones’ award-winning novel An American Marriage here!

Read full post on NPR