Things That Are True About Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey:
It is a clever satire of Gothic literature, a particularly interesting project, given that "novels," or full-length books of fiction, where only just emerging as a distinct and consistent literary tradition. Moreover, our novel-loving heroine was of an early generation of literate young women.It is playfully deconstructed, as Jane's voice interjects the story to discuss "our heroine" Catherine Morland's adventures and lively imagination directly with us readers

Choose Books: What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics
Why Choose Books for your gifts this holiday season? Glad you asked. It's because there are few things more fun than giving someone a book they fall in love with; it lasts longer and matters more than, say, necklaces or sweaters, while rarely being more than about fifteen dollars. What's more, your purp

The Blade: It Didn't Go Gently
In a guest post for the Women's Media Center, I discuss the abrupt closing of the estimable Washington Blade and how staffers swiftly rallied to launch a new publication. This is no small matter. As the Washington Post put it: "The Blade's importance to our area cannot be overstated. From the HIV/AIDS epidemic to hate crimes to the drive for marriage equality, the paper reported stories that the mainstream press initially didn't or wouldn't cover. ... it held people accountable -- gay and straight, elected officials and community le

Jane Austen Defends the Novel: Or, 'Take That, You Feeble-Minded Naysayers!'
I can't tell you how much I adore Jane Austen novels. I'm in the thick of Northanger Abbey, and it's a total delight--full of wit and charm. What stands out in this one, compared to other two books of hers that I've read, is that the author herself seems to step into the pages, clearly marking herself as the storyteller and indulging her own voice--as in one early scene, when our heroine Catherine Morland and her friend Isabella bond over a shared love of novel-reading. Jane takes the cue to step up to the bat for novels as an art form. She p

The Ghosts of History, Fiction
Stephen Greenblatt calls Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall "a startling achievement, brilliant...," but it must be said that his own essay that draws from her novel is itself outstanding. Greenblatt, the author of the wonderful Will in the World, spins his book review into an expansive reflection on the purpose and possibilities of historical fiction. Greenblatt notes that the historical novel is defined not merely by being set in the past; Middlemarch, he writes,