(Lev Grossman writes about books here on Wednesdays. Subscribe to his RSS feed.) This post is by way of a reply to Arthur Krystal’s “Easy Writers,” a thoroughly thought-provoking piece about the ...

Romance fiction has one of the most recognisable brands in book culture. It is known for a handful of attributes: its happy-ever-after endings, the pocket Mills & Boon and Harlequin editions, the ...

Out of all the horrifying icebreakers she could have gone with on that snowy first day in a class full of English majors, Prof. Masha Raskolnikov, literatures in English, chose the absolute worst one: ...