Contributing writer for The Artifice.
Junior Contributor III
Locked | The Books that Have Shaped Young Adult FictionWhilst YA Fiction in a sense existed before the 21st Century, it was never a properly defined genre that you could visit in the bookstore. You usually had your Childrens books and then your Adult books and your Classics. YA Fiction exploded into being with the publication of the Harry Potter books which we can consider as Modern Classics. This topic would be on the game changing books that have contributed to the growing shape and form of Young Adult Fiction. For example, Harry Potter led to the popularity of YA adventure and action books such as Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games is a staple in the genre for creating a wave of Dystopian fiction. Stephenie Meyer's Twilight and Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter books paved the way for the multitude of paranormal fantasy books. John Green's The Fault in Our Stars contributed to the overwhelming popularity of Contemporary novels that delve into difficult and important topics that teenagers go through in life. Of course there are positives and current or potential implications on these books in terms of how they have shaped the genre as well as how the genre is marketed, or at least what publishers looks for in this realm of Young Adult fiction. This would a very interesting topic to look at.
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A Broad Discussion on the Dynamics of Speculative FictionSpeculative Fiction is an umbrella genre for stories that are other-worldly. For example, fantasy, science-fiction, dystopian fiction, paranormal fantasy and more. I think it would be interesting to discuss the genre as a whole, in terms of story dynamics. A lot of speculative fiction has one foot in reality and another in a fantasy-like setting. Often speculative fiction has a lot to tell us about our reality, whether this is reflecting our reality or subverting reality to reveal new truths about the world. It would be great to look at the varying degrees to which this occurs in speculative fiction.
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Audiobooks: Do they Enhance or Diminish the Enjoyment of a Story? | |
Ah yes! Accessibility of storytelling is a huge benefit of audiobooks. 🙂 | Audiobooks: Do they Enhance or Diminish the Enjoyment of a Story? |
That’s similar to some Lecture series I have listened to on Audible where they come with pdfs of additional learning material. It’s awesome 🙂 | Audiobooks: Do they Enhance or Diminish the Enjoyment of a Story? |
That’s great to hear. Audiobooks can be really calming in that way I’ve found. 🙂 | Audiobooks: Do they Enhance or Diminish the Enjoyment of a Story? |
I’m currently very slowly making my way through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer which is the popular definitive account of World War II and I’m up to a section that is about Mein Kampf. It’s crazy that the work was a blueprint for what came to be because of him years after its publication. Really interesting audiobook selections to compare with one another. | Audiobooks: Do they Enhance or Diminish the Enjoyment of a Story? |
So many good non-fiction recommendations that I’ll have to check out 🙂 | Audiobooks: Do they Enhance or Diminish the Enjoyment of a Story? |
The Harry Potter audiobooks are so amazing. They’re the only ones that I can listen to on double speed without getting confused with what is happening;. Simply magical! 🙂 | Audiobooks: Do they Enhance or Diminish the Enjoyment of a Story? |
Totally agree! Audiobooks are a saviour for learning to pronounce names although sometimes if I reread something via audio, I get put off when they pronounce names differently to how I thought them to be pronounced. | Audiobooks: Do they Enhance or Diminish the Enjoyment of a Story? |
I definitely agree! 🙂 I would never want a world without physical books. A mix is always good.