It's mostly Straight White Dude Angst, but the line for me usually falls between Books They Will Give Nobels and Bookers To

Except the Booker is more apt to be non white guys than the Nobels (probably because it is for the book not the author's body of work). Hence a historical fiction turning Thomas Cromwell into an amazingly page-turning bromance is a Booker winner. Twice.

I think the Capital-L literature is more about un-fun character studies as opposed to fiction which is about engaging plots. It's like oatmeal books vs. cheeseburger books.

I missed that Doris Lessing died yesterday: [link]

I don't disagree with the author's points about Twilight, but I think she completely misses the mark when it comes to Katniss Everdeen. And as much as I love Little Women (and I still do), her ideas about Jo March really don't seem to consider that Jo is a trailblazer only within a very limited framework.

Grumble grumble.

Katniss didn't transcend? That's an odd stance to take. I think there's a lot she didn't do that you might ask out of a hero's journey, but she transcended okay for me.

Mockingjay's ending is problematic from a character development perspective though. In terms of the author's thesis - that Katniss did not have dreams that transcended her current circumstance, I probably would not agree with that. Initially, she wanted to survive and ensure the safety of her sister. After that, I think she was trying to protect her sister and Gale and Peeta and then eventually the whole government/oppression became her enemy .

I don't know -- I think Katniss did what felt right to her partly out of obligation, not necessarily because it was the only option open to her. (I'm talking about the very end there.)

I also think when you're working with a world with a certain population is starved and desperate, and children are made to fight to the death, what you need to transcend initially is death, and the death of your loved ones. Katniss didn't change the whole world, but she made a pretty big mark given what she was working with.

Amy,

I agree with you. I kind of feel like I didn't like Collins' writing to bring us to that point though.

Every single death in A Song of Ice and Fire: [link]

beat me to it, Consuela. That is amazing.

In other (less deadly) books, I interviewed the author of A River of No Return about time travel and food today: [link]

This is interesting - some simple textual analysis of the Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Twilight series, giving the most distinctive adjectives, adverbs, and sentences are. There's not much that's surprising, but I thought it funny what Suzanne Collins' most common adjective is.