Since closing the book on Harry Potter in 2007, with a time-jumping epilogue that seemed designed to squash readers’ hopes for an eighth installment in the series, J.K. Rowling has given us little reason to believe we would ever again read an authorized word on our favorite green-eyed wizard. She’s since written a novel about […]

We’ve all had the experience of falling into a fictional world and finding ourselves unable to climb back out—and it seems that’s a problem for the writers who create those worlds, too. Today, Rainbow Rowell (she of Eleanor & Park, the best ’80s teen movie never to be transported through time and published as a […]

Poor old Death, that abstract devil. When it comes to books, Death’s often the bridesmaid, rarely the deceased bride, cutting down characters off screen like an underappreciated civil servant. There are, however, a precious few literary endeavors that bring Death to center stage, allowing him/her/it to become a fully fleshed character in his/her/its own right. […]