Mystery #3 for Literary Snobs: Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

Posted on by Michael Kahn
Any excuse to read this South American grandmaster is a good one. Luckily for us, mysteries were his favorite fiction. As fellow South American author Alberto Manguel reminisced about Jorge Luis Borges in his piece in the 2006 Criminal Content issue of Words Without Borders: “He loved detective novels. He found in their formulae the ideal narrative structures that…
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Mysteries for Literary Snobs

Posted on by Michael Kahn
Once upon a time, novels were just, well, novels. Pride and Prejudice was once just a novel, as were The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and The Woman in White. If first published this year, however, each would be slotted into one of the genre ghettos constructed by the literary snobs….
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Great Opening Lines: Thoughts from Other Fans

Posted on by Michael Kahn
A few months back, I did a post on the greatest opening lines in literature. Since then, I’ve had a chance to sample through the thoughts of others on the subject. Below are some of my favorite pieces: Let’s start with a fun post by Guy Dammann of the Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian.  Atop…
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Some More Thoughts on Hollywood and the Novel

Posted on by Michael Kahn
As I work on my next post for Poisoned Pen Press–“Mysteries for Literary Snobs”–I pause to return to our consideration of Hollywood adaptations of novels. While authors have long been happy to sell the motion picture rights in their novel, they tend to strike a condescending pose when asked about Hollywood. Ernest Hemingway wrote that…
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