The Horror Boom Is Not a Trend. It's the Weather.
Every few months someone writes that horror is 'having a moment.' It has been having a moment since the first campfire. What's changed is who's allowed to admit they read it.
Section
Culture
Book news, bookish internet, and adaptations we have opinions about, delivered calmly.
6 articles
The Podcast Voice Has Reached the Books
There is a way of talking about murder that podcasts invented: chatty, intimate, slightly thrilled. It has started turning up in books, and the books are worse for it.
A Field Guide to the Man Who Is Also a Problem
He has a jaw. He has a dark past. He has a title with the word 'High' in it. He has been rude to her for 200 pages, and he is about to turn out to have been protecting her the entire time. Here is how to identify him.
Going Out Is Having a Moment. We'll Be Sitting It Out.
The columns say people are going out again. The bars are full, the dinner parties are back, the trend is 'being seen.' We read these pieces with interest, in the chair, and turn the page.
Every Cozy Mystery Cat Is Named After a Dead Author and Someone Should Look Into It
The sleuth has a cat. The cat has a name. The name is Agatha, or Dashiell, or Poe, or Hercule. There is a pattern here, it is universal, and I'd like to know who decided.
The Kindle-Versus-Hardcover War Has Ended in a Détente Nobody Announced
For fifteen years the internet argued about whether e-readers would kill the book. The argument is over. Nobody won. Everybody has both, uses both, and has stopped mentioning it, which is how every war actually ends.