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A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021)
10.0/10on Open Library
Published
Saunders gives you the first page of Chekhov’s “In the Cart” and asks what you now expect the story to do. The pauses give you time to compare your guesses with what turns up on the next page. The seven stories are included, so you can read each one before its discussion if you prefer to meet it on your own.
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How fiction works (2008)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
Wood uses Henry James’s What Maisie Knew to show how a story told in the third person can still sound like the child whose world it follows. Watch for words that make sense to Maisie while carrying a darker meaning for an adult reader. The excerpt is enough to try the idea without finishing the novel first.
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What matters in Jane Austen? (2013)
Published
In Emma, Mrs. Elton drops the “Mr.” when she speaks of Knightley. Mullan’s chapter about how characters address each other gives you a way to hear why that small choice irritates Emma and what Mrs. Elton wants the name to imply. Finish the novel first if you want to keep the later couples a surprise.
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Playing in the dark (1938)
8.8/10on Open Library
Published
Read Willa Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl first if you want to follow every turn of Morrison’s argument. Morrison asks how much room Cather’s novel allows Nancy, the enslaved girl at its center, to speak and be understood on her own terms. Return to the novel looking for whose feelings take over when Nancy’s future is at stake.
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On Morrison (2026)
Published
The first time Serpell read Sula, she decided she would never teach it or write about it. Two decades later she jumped at the chance to introduce a new edition. Read Sula before her discussion if you want the friendship between Sula and Nel to unfold without interference. Then go back to see which exchanges helped you decide what they mean to each other.
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The art of fiction (1992)
Published
Read the two openings in Lodge’s first chapter before you look at his explanation. Emma starts by telling you how comfortable its heroine’s life has been, and The Good Soldier starts with a narrator announcing how sad his story is. The excerpts let you compare what each novel offers you on its first page without reading either one in advance.
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Read Until You Understand (2021)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
Griffin’s father left her an instruction to read until she understood. Look at how she puts that idea into practice when she brings Frederick Douglass’s Fourth of July speech into a book about her own family and American democracy. You can start with the speech and listen for whose freedom Douglass means when he addresses his audience.
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Changing my mind (2009)
6.0/10on Open Library
Published
Smith begins with her reluctance to read Their Eyes Were Watching God and gets interested in how quickly Hurston’s conversations reveal people. Read Hurston’s novel first if you want Janie’s story to unfold at its own pace. Then pick a conversation and notice which speaker can get away with a joke and which one can bring the talk to a halt.
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The naive and the sentimental novelist (2010)
Published
Pamuk returns to Anna Karenina’s train ride and the novel she takes out to read. It’s a way to think about how you picture Anna while she’s busy picturing the people in her own book. You can begin with that scene in Tolstoy instead of committing to the whole novel. Nazım Dikbaş translated Pamuk’s lectures.
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Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
7.0/10on Open Library
Published
In the Gatsby section, Nafisi describes a classroom trial in which students debate what Fitzgerald’s novel asks a reader to admire. Try it after reading The Great Gatsby. You can decide which details to use as evidence and ask whether a character’s choices amount to the book’s own position.
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The Possessed (2010)
9.0/10on Open Library
Published
Start with “Babel in California,” where Batuman compares a hundred-volume Tolstoy edition with the small shelf Isaac Babel’s surviving work takes up. Babel’s 1920 diary and Red Cavalry give you a pair to read together. Look for what changes when material from a diary becomes a short story.
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Why read the classics? (1999)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
In Martin McLaughlin’s translation, look for the essay on the many Odysseys contained in Homer’s poem. Calvino takes Telemachus’s search as a hunt for a story people haven’t yet been able to tell. Read the poem first if you want its surprises. Then count how many people tell versions of the homecoming before it’s over.
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Reading Like a Writer (2006)
5.4/10on Open Library
Published
Prose uses James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield to show how a movement can tell you something a character never thinks to say. Begin with the chapter on gesture and its examples. Then take one scene from a short story and ask how much you would know about the person if you could only see what they do.
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