LM's 2010 Back-to-School Guide!

It's almost time to go back to school, and that means reading a lot of long books--or better yet, letting someone else read them and tell you about it!

Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded was first published in 1740, and it's, like, five million pages long, because people had nothing else to do in olden times. Pamela is written as a series of letters, which is called Episcopalian form.

The plot is basically this: Pamela is a servant girl whose boss wants to bang her, but she says no, because she's a Rules girl.Then he tries to rape her for a few hundred pages, and then they get married! Yay! There's nothing like a happy ending.

Next week: The Monk!

Andrew Marvell

National Poetry Month is upon us! Every April, all across the land, teachers are trying to get students to read some poems and not hate them. Now you could try to imbue students with the beauty of language and the power of the written word, or you could just pick the sexy poems and only read those.

Case in point: Andrew Marvell. He was always writing about doing it! His most famous poem can be summarized like this: have sex with me right now, because what if we die tomorrow and then we would have never had sex? (I like to call this genre "high art pickup lines.") If that doesn't capture the entire point of poetry, then I don't know what does.

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Look, had we but world enough and time, we might do original Andrew Marvell. But Jersey Shore Marvell™ is WAY hotter, and his overt sluttiness more accurately captures the essence of his work. Now you'll have to excuse us, we've got to roll all our strength and all our sweetness up into one ball. It's gonna be hot.

Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov, what can I say? You're a pretty great writer and all, and we like you especially because you wrote about sexy things like sex and whatnot, but . . . how do I put this . . . you look like an entomologist. It's great to have a genus of butterfly named after you, but I like my butterflies in the form of lower back tattoos. That's what modern-day Lolitas are all about.

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Much better! All authors should be sexy and all butterflies should have sparkles on them. This is so obvious! Thank God for Literary Makeovers.

Halloween Bash: Dead Celebrity Costumes

Halloween is almost here! This has been the cool year for celebrity deaths, inspiring plenty of great costume ideas!


Edgar Allan Poe


Virginia Woolf


Miguel de Cervantes

More Costumes from our Favorite Writers:

Here's another sneak peek at what to expect this Halloween:



Joyce Carol Oates and Flannery O'Connor

And here's a snapshot from LM's 2008 Halloween Bash, when absolutely everyone went as Sarah Palin--how embarrassing!



John Milton, Christine de Pisan, Charles Dickens, Lao Tzu

LM's Halloween Countdown!

It's October, and that means that it's almost time for our annual Halloween Bash! A few of our fabulous writers are already working on their costumes:


The Venerable Bede



Dorothy Parker

Stay tuned for more updates!

Becoming a Better Jane

Literary Makeovers was first formed according to one guiding principal: that Jane Austen could use some freaking help. That's one reason we're delighted with these new books: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Because not only did Jane Austen desperately need a makeover, her work did, too! I mean, have you ever read it? We haven't. But these two books totally look like improvements. Nobody wants to read about a bunch of English people sitting around drinking tea and listening to Oasis or whatever. But when you add monsters--that's a story!





We salute the geniuses behind these spooktacular Austen makeovers. We've also come up with a few ideas of our own, using things that terrify us--just in time for Halloween!