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Syllabi

Why You Should Read Gene Wolfe (and Where to Start)
On the science fiction author that even literary snobs will love
 • Lincoln Michel
The Best Books I Read in 2025 (That Weren't Published in 2025)
On Homer, Iris Murdoch, Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, and other authors I loved reading this year.
 • Lincoln Michel
Literary Philosophy and Philosophical Literature
On philosophers who wrote novels and novelists inspired by philosophy
 • Lincoln Michel
Short Little Difficult Books
Novels that challenge with style, story, or form that you can read in a day.
 • Lincoln Michel
The Counter Craft Halloween Horror Writing Guide
🚨New book announcement! 🚨Plus, unlocking bone-chilling articles from the archives
 • Lincoln Michel
The Age of Genre Bending, Blending, and Juxtaposing
Thoughts on the most important literary trend of the last 25 years, and novels that juxtapose different genres side by side.
 • Lincoln Michel
The Strange Shadow of Kafka's Parables and Paradoxes
On fiction that blurs the line between aphorisms, fables, kōans, and jokes.
 • Lincoln Michel
What We Write About When We Write About Writers
Novels about writing groups, literary movements, and secret artistic societies
 • Lincoln Michel
Novels in Unusual Forms
On excellent novels that upend expectations of form and structure
 • Lincoln Michel
The Novel as Shaggy Dog Joke
On Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine and novels whose pleasures are in denying our expectations
 • Lincoln Michel
Some Surreal Books from Around the World
A reading list for fans of the dreamlike, nightmarish, and downright bizarre
 • Lincoln Michel
A Literary Fairy Tale Syllabus
Books that meld fairy tales with the Gothic, the surreal, the postmodern, and the sublime
 • Lincoln Michel
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