Literature

Many baseball books that are in the popular conscience are books like The Natural, Ball Four, and The Art of Fielding, typically range from fictional novels to biographies to nonfiction. Despite the range of styles, these books mostly focus on the players or teams.

Moneyball, on the other hand, is very different from other popular baseball books. It focuses on the front office, economics, and sabermetrics of baseball rather than revolving around players. It was the first popular baseball book about the economic and sabermetric side, and since then many other books in that vein have been written.

But why haven't they gotten as popular as Moneyball? Moneyball showed that these books have an audience and can even be marketable to adapt into a film (although the film is very different from the book). But other books like The Extra 2% haven't had the pop culture impact or reach that Moneyball has had.

So what makes Moneyball stand among other sabermetric literature and what keeps it as the king of that hill?

In Victorian literature, many of the women within the pages of novels and poems fall under the wings of the 'angel in the house'. Meaning, they are submissive and devoted to their husband/father/some sort of male figure.
But, do you think the angel in the house is gone? Has she returned in modern day texts? Subconsciously, is she still apart of many women in literature today?

Throughout the years, young-adult fiction has been a fascinating sub-genre of novels, ranging from sparkling vampires to dystopian worlds. In particular, the growing popularity of these books, and the recent trend of books-turned-movies has shot YA fiction into the spotlight. With popular series’ like “Twilight” and the “The Hunger Games,” there has been a surge of ‘copycat’ themes and styles arising, which has influenced the genre in many ways.

Starting from the origins of young, coming-of-age novels, like S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders,” where has the genre shifted, changed, and grown? How has the content of these novels altered and does that reflect a difference of perspective in modern times?

There are several components that must be present in writing in order for literature to become – well, literature. Once such component that isn't a necessity, but nevertheless, occurs frequently in novels, poetry, historical documents, and even political texts is religion. While we know such classics like Charlotte Bronte's _Jane Eyre_ and Shakespeare's _Rome and Juliet_ are teeming with religious allusions, can we say that religion, or religious undertones, in some form are present in nearly everything we read? This also requires us to ask if we have a common idea of what religion really is. Does it simply mean any set of principles or beliefs by which we choose to live, or must religion involve a higher power or entity? To culturally define religion and ask ourselves if we are being fed religious ideas while we read whatever we read is something about which I have often wondered. Discussion?

I was inspired by "The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller that explores the love between Achilles and Patroclus that was erased or ignored by many historians and adaptations of the story of Troy. It could be a very productive idea to discuss how reclamation of our erased stories can be empowering. Could also make an intersection with race and gender for parallel.

Romance novel are often looked down on and seen as somehow inferior. Chick lit is a name that has negative connotations. It suggests something trashy or throwaway. Even Jane Austen, whose books are considered classics, is criticised for not concentrating on weightier issues. But why are romance novels so easily dismissed? Is it because it's mainly a genre written by women? Is it literary snobbery for something that is so popular? Romance, after all, is an important part of everyone's life. Most people either get married or live together. Obviously not all romance novels can be of the same calibre but many are well written and engaging. So there does seem to be an unfair tendency to criticise romance novels.

Look at this idea in terms of classic authors like Jane Austen and modern day authors like Diana Gabaldon or Nicholas Sparks.

This article seeks to pinpoint and discuss re-used/well-worn tropes in literature surrounding the issue of family and the background/ongoing story of a fantasy literary protagonist! What exactly is it about the tropes that fuels a protagonist's backstory – that makes it interesting? Why are these tropes used time and again (i.e. Dead Parents, Wicked Stepmother, Death by Childbirth); and in your opinion, are they useful, or too well-worn? Are there any notable exceptions where family either doesn't play a huge role (i.e. they're not mentioned), or they do, and are treated much as part of the protagonist's current story line as their past reason for doing things/giving them angst and trauma?

(It could be worth looking at TV Tropes and other websites for names of particular 'tropes' to discuss and explore).

The topic so far is merely a question in my head, and there are things too that I am uncertain about, such as whether this fits under writing or literature…

But what I hope for someone to explore is precisely what does the attainment or possession of the coveted position bode for the future of the writer? For many authors, the Nobel Prize in Literature is the ultimate, if not the most significant and most revered, position one can attain. It is a validation of one's place in history, a literal title that translates into the opposite of oblivion, instead, it is the acknowledgment that one has made great contributions to the development of literature, whose legacy will be set in stone and whose name will not be so easily forgotten.

In many of our minds, the awarding of the Nobel Prize comes late in the author's life: it is the crowning achievement of decades of hard, continuous work, the culmination and recognition of multiple published books, and the result of authorial evolution, progress, and contribution.

My question then is, what happens after?
Has this recognition amplified their prior productivity? Or stunted it? Does winning the prize make the writer take a step back from their typewriter and say, "this is it, there is no more need for anything else", or does it motivate them to continue the work they have begun, only stopping when they finally pass?

Jean-Paul Sartre, who famously declined the Prize in 1964, continued working tirelessly on his "Critique of Dialectical Reason" until his passing. William Faulkner (who also hated the fame that the Prize brought), after winning it in 1949, wrote two landmark works after, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962).

There aren't many examples of writers who have continued their intensity of producing works after the awarding of the Prize, but anyone who takes up this topic could look at those who did, the nature of the works after the winning of the Prize, and whether the attainment of this revered position has positively or negatively influenced the legacy of the writers.