Word: pessl
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...Susan Sontag were alive today, she would probably be hard at work on an essay. The essay would be called "Notes on Quirk," and it would be about Juno, Feist, Marisha Pessl, Napoleon Dynamite, Charlie Kaufman, Elizabeth Gilbert, Bridget Jones, Nick Hornby and roughly 71% of all bloggers. The essay would analyze--lovingly, pitilessly--that category of entertainment that celebrates people who are lonely, misunderstood and defiantly eccentric but who, we're supposed to understand, are secretly cooler than everybody else, if only they knew it. Sontag would locate the elusive line that separates Bad Quirk--annoying, self-satisfied idiosyncrasy...
...have different standards for our celebrities, and an over-fondness for Krispy Kremes is a dealbreaker. Today’s author celebrities are famous either because of the immense amounts of money their books have made (Dan Brown) or because they are new, young, and attractive (Marisha Pessl). When books are competing with so many other media sources, good looks and a marketable image are as important as the work you produce. Rarely do you see an author that can get a deal and remain a hermit. Contracts now come with book signings, public talks, and television appearances...
...chapters are named after famous books, such as “A Moveable Feast” and “Metamorphosis.” Besides flagging important themes for the reader, the titles make up a required reading list more expansive than an average English class. Pessl transforms nouns to verbs (“triple-lutzed”, “couch potatoed”), recites “Casablanca” and German poetry, and boasts an impressive and oft-quoted literary collection; she peppers the text with nods to real historical heroes (Winston Churchill) and imagined ones...
...Gareth, a charismatic professor and Casanova. For reasons unforeseen, the pair settles down at a North Carolina private school where Blue meets Hannah Schneider. Schneider is more than a teacher; she’s “a shade of grey,” and her sudden death, which Pessl reveals in the first chapter, catalyzes a series of peculiar events. We follow Blue as she Nancy Drews around campus, collecting specimens from her past and the not-so-distant pasts of others in efforts to unravel the twisted circumstances surrounding the fatality...
Special Topics in Calamity Physics By Marisha Pessl Viking Adult...