Brian Shawver's Blog

• Beach Reads

  July 23, 2008

  • Over the past few weeks, newspapers and magazines have been engaged in one of the more persistent rites of summer—the publication of articles focusing on “beach reads.” These articles (often just lists of beach read suggestions) tend to assume we’re all on board with the concept they promote—that is, when summer comes we only want books that are entertaining, and that don’t make us ...
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• Living Wills

  April 13, 2008

  • A few weeks ago, I read about the ongoing controversy surrounding Dmitri Nabokov's obligation to destroy his father's unpublished manuscript "The Original of Laura." I don't know about any recent developments in the story, but at the time the crux of it was that Vladimir had clearly wanted the manuscript destroyed, and Dmitri felt some obligation to finally do so (he's getting on in ...
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• Dogs and Books

  February 25, 2008

  • Inspired by the recent Westminster Dog Show, I decided to come up with a top ten lis of the best dogs in literature (by the way, I'm pretty proud of myself for not titling this "Top Dogs"). Unfortunately, after deciding to stick with adult literary fiction, and with dogs that don't just make brief appearances, it turned out I couldn't think of enough. The comprehensive list of ones I ...
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• Presidential Literature

  February 1, 2008

  • I love reading those articles about the presidential candidates' reading preferences. It seems that revealing their favorite novels has become as expected for the candidates as turning over their income tax filings, and it's presumed to say a lot more about their characters. Many of the articles I've read about this phenomenon have dwelt on the fact that the answers are likely calculated, ...
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• Ideas for Novels, Part II

  January 7, 2008

  • Last time I mentioned that people often give me ideas for books, and while that's true, for some reason I can't remember any besides the one I got from my tax consultant. But staying on that topic, I think it's interesting that people assume getting ideas must be a big part of writing--so difficult that we're always on the lookout for good ideas. It seems to me that coming up with  ideas is ...
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• Ideas for books

  January 1, 2008

  • People often give me ideas for books. They're not always serious, but sometimes they are. The ideas aren't always feasible ones, but again, sometimes they are. I wasn't sure what kind of thing to write on a blog, so my wife suggested I talk about the ideas people suggest. So here's the first one: I once went to H&R Block to get my taxes done, and when I told the consultant I was a writer, he ...
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