Near the end of “One Small Scruple,” I was mildly peeved to be pulled into a plot-line seemingly derived from one in “Brideshead Revisited.” Much distracted, I did some poking around and was [pleasantly] stunned to find that Ward’s “Scruple” was written first!
As always, fantastic links. I just added all the authors mentioned in the First Things article to my goodreads list. And the piece about education hit home-I was seeing it when teaching high school, and I found it so so worrying. Finally, the sabbatical bit was interesting. So much of what the article talked about, how intense focus followed by a break can work better, are things my husband has observed and talked about wanting in his own work life. So many meetings feel pointless to him because nothing has actually changed or been done; it’s being busy to be busy.
I still don't really understand what the intended audience of YA literature is. It sounds like they are calling it "young adult" when it's intended for adolescents? When a young adult, at least in my mind, is an actual adult, who is young.
Loved the piece by BDM. Thanks for sharing! There’s just one key factor missing: that childhood is much shorter now than it was 10 years ago. Another writer I love, Ben Hunt, observed, “give your kid a smartphone if you want their childhood to end.”
That phenomenon is assuredly driving the children’s storytelling farther toward adult territory. A YA novel published 10 years ago might be too childlike for today’s average 10 yr old.
Haley, thanks for sharing that!
Great pieces this week. Have you read Ted Gioia's piece on the State of Culture 2024? Reminded me of the literary crisis link you shared.
Near the end of “One Small Scruple,” I was mildly peeved to be pulled into a plot-line seemingly derived from one in “Brideshead Revisited.” Much distracted, I did some poking around and was [pleasantly] stunned to find that Ward’s “Scruple” was written first!
As always, fantastic links. I just added all the authors mentioned in the First Things article to my goodreads list. And the piece about education hit home-I was seeing it when teaching high school, and I found it so so worrying. Finally, the sabbatical bit was interesting. So much of what the article talked about, how intense focus followed by a break can work better, are things my husband has observed and talked about wanting in his own work life. So many meetings feel pointless to him because nothing has actually changed or been done; it’s being busy to be busy.
I still don't really understand what the intended audience of YA literature is. It sounds like they are calling it "young adult" when it's intended for adolescents? When a young adult, at least in my mind, is an actual adult, who is young.
Loved the piece by BDM. Thanks for sharing! There’s just one key factor missing: that childhood is much shorter now than it was 10 years ago. Another writer I love, Ben Hunt, observed, “give your kid a smartphone if you want their childhood to end.”
That phenomenon is assuredly driving the children’s storytelling farther toward adult territory. A YA novel published 10 years ago might be too childlike for today’s average 10 yr old.