Latest news with #TheAdventuresofHuckleberryFinn
Los Angeles Times
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, June 15
1. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books: $30) A story of friendship, love and adversity during the 1980s Space Shuttle program. 2. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 3. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 4. Never Flinch by Stephen King (Scribner: $32) Holly Gibney is back on the case, this time facing both a serial killer and a stalker. 5. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. 6. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 7. Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf: $30) Two Floridians are plunged into a mystery involving dark money and darker motives. 8. Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown & Co.: $30) The bestselling crime writer returns with a new cop on a mission, this time on Catalina Island. 9. The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Henry Holt & Co.: $29) An unexpected wedding guest gets surprise help on her journey to starting anew. 10. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Ace: $30) A man and his ex's cat try to survive a sadistic game show in the first book of the popular fantasy series. … 1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 2. Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (Penguin Press: $32) Inside President Biden's doomed decision to run for reelection and the hiding of his serious decline by his inner circle. 3. Shoveling S— by Kass Lazerow and Michael Lazerow (Amplify Publishing: $26) Two entrepreneurs share hard-learned lessons. 4. Notes to John by Joan Didion (Knopf: $32) Diary entries from the famed writer's journal. 5. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A call to renew a politics of plenty and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. 6. The #1 Dad Book by James Patterson (Little, Brown & Co.: $25) The bestselling author's tips on being a better father. 7. Steve Martin Writes the Written Word by Steve Martin (Grand Central Publishing: $30) A collection of greatest hits from the beloved actor and comedian. 8. I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally (Gallery Books: $30) The restaurateur relates his gritty childhood and rise in the dining scene. 9. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease. 10. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator) (Scribner: $20) The 'Braiding Sweetgrass' author on gratitude, reciprocity and community, and the lessons to take from the natural world. … 1. Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley: $20) 2. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 3. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 4. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 5. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 6. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage: $19) 7. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19) 8. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Grand Central: $20) 9. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Penguin: $18) 10. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) … 1. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 2. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 3. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20) 4. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17) 5. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 6. The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Vintage: $19) 7. Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco: $19) 8. Eve by Cat Bohannon (Vintage: $20) 9. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18) 10. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Vintage: $18)
Spectator
04-06-2025
- General
- Spectator
What Mark Twain owed to Charles Dickens
You know Mark Twain's story. You've got no excuse not to; there have been so many biographies. Starting in the American South as Samuel Clemens, he took his pen name from the call of the Mississippi boatmen on reaching two fathoms. His lectures, followed by his travel pieces and novels, enchanted America and then the world. As a southerner, his principled stance against slavery gave him moral authority. The famous 'Notice' to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – 'Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished' – was swept aside, so that persons like H.L. Mencken could straightfacedly describe it as 'the greatest novel ever written in English'. Though made rich by his writing and an ambitious marriage, Twain lost an enormous amount of money as a result of bad speculation. He died as famous as any author has ever been. His lessons of vividness and concision have not always been well learnt. Some biographies, including this one, stretch Twain's life out to 1,000 or even 2,000 pages of adoringly documented quotidian footling. In his funniest piece of literary criticism, Twain wrote of a piece by James Fenimore Cooper: 'Number of words: 320. Necessary ones: 220; wasted by the generous spendthrift: 100.' You wonder how a biographer could quote this and then sum up Twain's objection to Cooper's prose as 'stiff, bloated and turgid'. Bloated and turgid of course mean the same thing. Twain's life demonstrates all sorts of things, but a very conspicuous one is the spell that Charles Dickens cast.
Axios
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
New book tackles the legend of Jim from Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn"
A new book unpacks Jim in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" — a fictional enslaved Black man who is one of the most memorable characters in American Literature. Why it matters: For more than a century, Jim has been a source of sympathy, ridicule, anger, and protest due to the Black dialect he uses throughout the novel, but scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin says that he's been misunderstood. The big picture: " Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade," released last month by Yale University Press, comes out amid renewed interest in the Twain character. Percival Everett recently won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel, "James," which reimagines Jim from an illiterate enslaved man as often portrayed to a savvy and literate soul who has more agency. Fishkin tells Axios she wanted to explore how we've viewed Jim throughout the decades and how he has shaped American culture. The text in Twain's classic hasn't changed throughout the years, "but we've changed," said Fishkin, one of the world's top Twain scholars. Catch up quick: " The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" tells the story of Huck, a young, uneducated white boy, and Jim, an escaped slave, as they travel together down the Mississippi River on a raft. The pair must avoid mobs of slave hunters and robbers along their journey and develop a sense of care for one another. The book uses racist epithets of the time, and Jim speaks in a language that critics say today resembles offensive minstrel shows in the late 1800s — all of which have generated demands for the novel to be banned. Yes, but: Fishkin says Twain was being subversive in the use of Jim's dialect and criticizing all the racist stereotypes with a humanized portrayal. "Jim is the smartest character in the book. It's a mistake to assume he's there to be ridiculed. In fact, he becomes a father to Huck," says Fishkin, who wrote the 1993 literature critic classic, "Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voice." Fishkin says Jim is a complex character who is really the first Black father portrayed in American literature. Zoom in: In her new book, Fishkin takes on the historical myths and models of Black men in post-Civil War America. She then gives us a rundown of the debates of Jim and the novel's use of racist language that have generated pushback from liberals and conservatives. Fishkin then presents the reader with an innovative exercise in one chapter, exploring what Jim would say about everything in his own dialect. She ends with a lesson on how some high school teachers are presenting the book today and what lessons can be learned when the book "is taught correctly."
Los Angeles Times
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, June 1
1. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 2. Nightshade by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown & Co.: $30) The bestselling crime writer returns with a new cop on a mission, this time on Catalina Island. 3. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 4. Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf: $30) Two Floridians are plunged into a mystery involving dark money and darker motives. 5. My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende (Ballantine Books: $30) A young writer in the late 1800s travels to South America to uncover the truth about her father. 6. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. 7. Spent by Alison Bechdel (Mariner Books: $32) The bestselling writer's latest comic novel takes on capitalism and consumption. 8. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 9. The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig (Orbit: $30) A young prophet takes an impossible quest with the one knight whose future is beyond her sight. 10. Anima Rising by Christopher Moore (William Morrow: $30) The tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter and an undead woman's journey of self-discovery. … 1. Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (Penguin Press: $32) Inside President Biden's doomed decision to run for reelection and the hiding of his serious decline by his inner circle. 2. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 3. Who Knew by Barry Diller (Simon & Schuster: $30) A frank memoir from one of America's top businessmen. 4. Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (W. W. Norton & Co.: $32) The naturalist explores rivers as living beings whose fate is tied with our own. 5. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer on how to be a creative person. 6. Mark Twain by Ron Chernow (Penguin Press: $45) The Pulitzer-winning biographer explores the life of the celebrated American writer. 7. Notes to John by Joan Didion (Knopf: $32) Diary entries from the famed writer's journal. 8. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A call to renew a politics of plenty and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. 9. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Knopf: $28) Reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values. 10. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Flatiron Books: $33) An insider's account of working at Facebook. … 1. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 2. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 3. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 4. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) 5. The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl (Random House Trade Paperbacks: $19) 6. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Transit Books: $17) 7. Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Grove Press: $17) 8. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Harper Perennial: $19) 9. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper Perennial: $22) 10. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (Grove Press: $22) … 1. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 2. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20) 3. The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (Penguin: $19) 4. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 5. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18) 6. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 7. Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch (Tarcher: $20) 8. The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan (Knopf: $36) 9. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $13) 10. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17)
Los Angeles Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The week's bestselling books, May 25
1. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press: $30) An unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. 2. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' 3. Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf: $30) Two Floridians are plunged into a mystery involving dark money and darker motives. 4. My Friends by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books: $30) The bond between a group of teens 25 years earlier has a powerful effect on a budding artist. 5. My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende (Ballantine Books: $30) A young writer in the late 1800s travels to South America to uncover the truth about her father. 6. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Berkley: $29) Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of an heiress. 7. Anima Rising by Christopher Moore (William Morrow: $30) The tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter and an undead woman's journey of self-discovery. 8. Audition by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead Books: $28) An accomplished actor grapples with the varied roles she plays in her personal life. 9. Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz (Harper: $31) Murder links past and present in a mind-boggling metafictional mystery. 10. The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Henry Holt & Co.: $29) An unexpected wedding guest gets surprise help on her journey to starting anew. … 1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) How to stop wasting energy on things you can't control. 2. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $30) A call to renew a politics of plenty and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. 3. We Can Do Hard Things by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle (The Dial Press: $34) The guidebook for being alive. 4. Mark Twain by Ron Chernow (Penguin Press: $45) The Pulitzer-winning biographer explores the life of the celebrated American writer. 5. The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad (Random House: $30) A guide to the art of journaling, with contributions from Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem and others. 6. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Flatiron Books: $33) An insider's account of working at Facebook. 7. I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally (Gallery Books: $30) The restaurateur relates his gritty childhood and rise in the dining scene. 8. Notes to John by Joan Didion (Knopf: $32) Diary entries from the famed writer's journal. 9. Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green (Crash Course Books: $28) The deeply human story of the fight against the world's deadliest infectious disease. 10. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer on how to be a creative person. … 1. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Ecco: $20) 2. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18) 3. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $19) 4. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Harper Perennial: $19) 5. The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl (Random House Trade Paperbacks: $19) 6. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune (Berkley: $19) 7. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage: $19) 8. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster: $19) 9. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Entangled: Red Tower Books: $21) 10. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Grand Central: $20) … 1. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12) 2. The Wager by David Grann (Vintage: $21) 3. Rich Relationships by Selena Soo (Rich Relationships LLC: $20) 4. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17) 5. The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan (Knopf: $36) 6. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Vintage: $18) 7. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18) 8. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $13) 9. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (TarcherPerigee: $20) 10. The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (Penguin: $19)
