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Mark Flanagan

Updated Articles and Resources

By Mark Flanagan, About.com Guide since 2003

Updated Articles and Resources
  • The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards Created: Sunday, May 19, 2013 Updated: Sunday, May 19, 2013
    Kristpoher Jansma's The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards follows an uninspired writer who attempts to bend the truths around him into a compelling work of fiction.
  • The Teleportation Accident Created: Sunday, May 19, 2013 Updated: Sunday, May 19, 2013
    The Teleportation Accident is a hilarious amalgamation of historical and genre fiction, possessing a humor reminiscent of novels like The Crying of Lot 49 and A Confederacy of Dunces.
  • The Tragedy of Mister Morn Created: Sunday, May 19, 2013 Updated: Sunday, May 19, 2013
    Vladimir Nabokov's earliest major work, his only full-length play The Tragedy of Mister Morn, now available in an English translation.
  • We Are What We Pretend to Be: The First and Last Works Created: Sunday, May 19, 2013 Updated: Sunday, May 19, 2013
    We Are What We Pretend to Be comprises Kurt Vonnegut's never before published first and last works, a novella written in the late 1940s and the unfinished novel Vonnegut left when he died in 2007.
  • The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond Created: Sunday, May 05, 2013 Updated: Sunday, May 05, 2013
    From Jared Diamond comes a fascinating first-hand account of the lifestyes, traditions and social workings of primitive societies in The World Until Yesterday.
  • Wise Men Created: Sunday, April 28, 2013 Updated: Sunday, April 28, 2013
    Opening in a wealthy community in Cape Cod in the 1950s, Wise Men is a novel about love, about race, and about a son attempting to break free of his father's money and legacy.
  • The Strange Tale of Panorama Island Created: Sunday, April 28, 2013 Updated: Sunday, April 28, 2013
    In Edogawa Ranpo's The Strange Tale of Panorama Island, a writer envisions creating a natural utopia he might create by stealing the identity of a recently-deceased wealthy acquaintance.
  • A Tale for the Time Being Created: Sunday, April 28, 2013 Updated: Sunday, April 28, 2013
    Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being comprises two narratives, that of a 16-year-old Japanese girl who sets out to tell the story of her 104-year-old Buddhist grandmother, and one of a novelist n...
  • Virtual Light Created: Sunday, April 28, 2013 Updated: Sunday, April 28, 2013
    Virtual Light, the first book in William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy, finds an out-of-work cop on the run with a Bridge-dwelling bicycle messenger who has pickpocketed the wrong pair of sunglasses.
  • The Burgess Boys Created: Sunday, April 14, 2013 Updated: Sunday, April 14, 2013
    Two brothers, Jim and Bob Burgess, escape their hometown, where a tragic accident killed their father years before, only to find themselves called back by familial obligations in Elizabeth Strout's...
  • House of Earth Created: Sunday, April 14, 2013 Updated: Sunday, April 14, 2013
    From Woody Guthrie, who gave us "This land is your land. This land is my land" in addition to more than 3,000 song lyrics, journals, diaries, letters, sketches, and cartoons, comes a singlular port...
  • The Dinner Created: Sunday, April 14, 2013 Updated: Sunday, April 14, 2013
    Herman Koch's The Dinner finds two couples erecting a wall of small talk as they avoid the subject of an atrocious act committed by their 15-year-old sons.
  • The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things Created: Sunday, April 14, 2013 Updated: Sunday, April 14, 2013
    In The Real Jane Austen, Paula Byrne provides a definitive contribution to the scholarship for Jane Austen. The Real Jane Austen is written with style, grace, and, most importantly, accuracy.
  • Temple of a Thousand Faces Created: Sunday, March 17, 2013 Updated: Friday, March 29, 2013
    In Temple of a Thousand Faces John Shors tells the story of the Cham invasion of Angkor and the attempt by the Khmer people to retake Angkor Wat.
  • Vampires in the Lemon Grove Created: Sunday, March 17, 2013 Updated: Friday, March 29, 2013
    In Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Karen Russell takes imaginative genre fiction and rustles it awake, shakes off a self-inflicted, impossible fantasy and molds story into something close to reality.
  • The Heart of Thomas Created: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Updated: Friday, March 29, 2013
    Well-known Japanese manga author Moto Hagio delivers a deeply complex shonen-ai story in The Heart of Thomas.
  • Good Kids Created: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Updated: Wednesday, March 27, 2013
    From Benjamin Nugent, the author of American Nerd, comes a story of Joshua Paquette, one of two "good kids," whose early exposure to parental adultery prompts a personal vow of divergence from anyt...
  • Red Doc> Created: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Updated: Wednesday, March 27, 2013
    Ann Carson's Red Doc> is complex work of both poetry and prose that reaches into the mythical past in the creation of a uniquely contemporary story.
  • The Pickup Created: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 Updated: Wednesday, March 27, 2013
    Julia, the daughter of a wealthy businessman in Cape Town, falls in love with Abdu, a poor Arab immigrant in Nadine Gordimer's The Pickup, a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Commonweal...
  • The Stockholm Octavo Created: Sunday, March 17, 2013 Updated: Wednesday, March 20, 2013
    A beautifully rendered debut novel, Karen Engelmann's The Stockholm Octavio is a blend of political skullduggery, romance, and fortune-telling set in late eighteenth-century Stockholm.
  • Travels with Epicurus Created: Sunday, March 17, 2013 Updated: Wednesday, March 20, 2013
    Daniel Klein (Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates) examines the possibilities of old age in this short meditation.
  • Tenth of December Created: Saturday, February 16, 2013 Updated: Wednesday, March 20, 2013
    Tenth of December, George Saunders' latest collection of short stories is a fine collection that highlights Saunders' ability to deftly combine humor with serious themes.
  • Girlchild Created: Monday, February 25, 2013 Updated: Wednesday, February 27, 2013
    Determined to break the cycle that women in her family have of getting pregnant early and often, Rory Hendrix takes refuge in books in Tupelo Hassman's debut novel,
  • Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes Created: Monday, February 25, 2013 Updated: Monday, February 25, 2013
    In The Hero of Heroes, his biography of Hank Greenberg, Rosengren has revealed a remarkable story of endurance and success in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
  • Umbrella Created: Monday, February 25, 2013 Updated: Monday, February 25, 2013
    Will Self's Umbrella is a novel full of wormholes, a maddening cross between high literature and string theory, and an inspiring and challenging experience, worthy of any supplemental essays, criti...
  • The Pharmacist's Mate and 8 Created: Saturday, February 16, 2013 Updated: Monday, February 25, 2013
    The Pharmacist's Mate and 8 are stories about healing and letting go - about coming to terms with her father's death and about reconciling her horrors of being raped as a child with the adult mothe...
  • Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Created: Saturday, February 16, 2013 Updated: Saturday, February 16, 2013
    In Robin Sloan's debut, a handful of Silicon Valley technophiles collide with the members of an ancient bibliophilic luddite cult to the great amusement of the reader.
  • Revenge Created: Saturday, February 16, 2013 Updated: Saturday, February 16, 2013
    Revenge is an interwovven collection of 11 macabre tales by Shirly Jackson Award winner Yoko Ogawa, an exemplary reminder that traditional "fiction of the strange" is not yet a lost art.
  • Open Door Created: Saturday, February 16, 2013 Updated: Saturday, February 16, 2013
    In Iosi Havilio's slim novel, Open Door, a detached and melancholy veterinarian narrator attempts to restructure her life after the mysterious disappearance of her girlfriend and finds herself buff...
  • In Persuasion Nation Created: Saturday, May 13, 2006 Updated: Saturday, February 16, 2013
    In Persuasion Nation is the latest collection of stories from acclaimed writer, George Saunders. "The Red Bow,"about a town consumed by pet-killing hysteria, won a 2004 National Magazine Award and ...
  • Burning Bright Created: Monday, January 28, 2013 Updated: Tuesday, January 29, 2013
    In Tracy Chevalier's 2007 novel, it is 1792 and the Kellaway family moves to London from the country, instantly finding themselves surrounded by all manner of remarkable sites and sounds, not the l...
  • Both Flesh and Not Created: Monday, January 28, 2013 Updated: Tuesday, January 29, 2013
    Both Flesh and Not is a mixed bag of posthumous collection of previously uncollected essays, book reviews and notes from David Foster Wallace.

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