Tag: Genre Fiction

Sunday Lit Crit Sermon: Choice of Books — Junius F. Wells

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Junius F. Wells, c. 1905

While we’ve read other commentaries on what books we should choose to read (for example, George Reynolds on “outside literature”), Wells has some interesting insights into the question, and is, perhaps, the most mild advice from this period that I have read. Instead of prohibiting “light literature,” he optimistically suggests that reading enough literature will itself lead to better choices: “Let us, therefore, make friends of our books, and carefully peruse them for the good they will do us; this will lead us to judicious selections.”

In addition, Wells’ discussion of fiction is so reasonable, that I now assume that the attitude comes from the same attitude many have today when they look at genre fiction–especially the bodice ripper. But even here, Wells doesn’t oppose fiction completely: “We do not wish to oppose too strenuously the reading of light literature, it often presents most faithfully true pictures of life. But we are opposed to making it our principal intellectual food.”

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Monsters & Mormons: Some Free Summer Reading

In the call for submissions for the Monsters & Mormons anthology, Theric and I mention a few authors as possible sources of inspiration. Luckily, because we’re hearkening back to the pulp era, you can find some of their work for free at Project Gutenberg and in a variety of formats, including html, e-book and, in some cases, audio book. Now this only covers the early years because many works are still under copyright, but it’s a good start. So in no particular order:

Feel free to add others in the comments section. I apologize for the lack of female authors — there weren’t many in the early era. However, I do plan on writing a second post that covers some authors whose works are still under copyright (so you’ll need to buy or borrow) but who are worth checking out if you are a) planning on writing something this summer to submit and/or b) simply interested in genre fiction.