I've never been one to simply read a book and be done with it. I'd like to find a free source for papers written on what I just read. Any ideas?
Posted Mar 29, 2011, 5:54 PM UTC
On google books and google scholar you'll find thousands of abstracts and previews and many full view resources.
Questia.com is a great online library with a satisfying selection on literature, but it's not free.
Sparknotes.com is a good free resource, but it's mostly at a high school level (think cliffsnotes).
You can also use bittorrent or websites like library.nu and scribd, but those aren't exactly legal.
Finally, there's your local library!
If I feel the need to confirm my take on a difficult book, I skim Sparknotes.
The New York Review of Books is excellent, as is the London Review of Books. Both often contain lengthy discussions relating to a particular book, topic, series of books or literary issue. NYRB also publishes a lot of political discourse and essays. The Literary Review is another great resource with lots of (relatively) short reviews; primarily on modern or recent books. Good author interviews too. The Times Literary Supplement is probably my favourite. Venerable (well over 100 years old), amusing and full of great reviews, regular columns, poetry (which I often like reading) and great debates; its letter pages are famous for the back and forth of literary debate, often with teeth bared and knives drawn! I love it.
The Guardian Review is the online version of the UK's Guardian newspaper's weekend books supplement. One of the better newspaper sites. Ditto The New York Times Book Review. Funnily enough, I find the UK sites and magazines tend to be more "casual" and relaxed than their American counterparts.
Some great online sites include the famous Arts and Letters Daily (its founder Denis Dutton sadly recently passed away, but the site remains very active thank goodness), NPR's Books, The Browser (though this covers both the online and written word - the site's focus being "interesting writing"), and I was recently pointed towards The Millions by a fellow redditor.
Finally, if you like historical source material, I highly recommend Lapham's Quarterly. Their web-site is pretty cool too.