Laura Miller is an American journalist and critic based in New York City. She is a co-founder of

Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...

Early life

Miller was raised as a Catholic and grew up in California. She has since said she deplores the Church's "guilt-mongering and tedious rituals."

Career

In 1995, Miller helped to co-found the news website

, and in 2000 she edited ''The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors'' with Adam Begley. In 2008 she authored ''The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia'', a book about

C.S. Lewis CS, C-S, C.S., Cs, cs, or cs. may refer to: Job titles * Chief Secretary (Hong Kong) * Chief superintendent, a rank in the British and several other police forces * Company secretary, a senior position in a private sector company or public se ...

's ''

The Chronicles of Narnia ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been adapted for radio, tele ...

'' fantasy series, her enchantment with it as a child, and her disenchantment with it as an adult after realizing its heavy use of religious themes. In 2016, Miller edited '' Literary Wonderlands'', a literary encyclopedia chronicling the history of

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...

. She is

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

's Books and Culture columnist.

Reception

Gary L. Tandy in ''Christianity and Literature'' called ''The Magician's book'' "Laura Miller's unique and intriguing extended essay about her experience as a lifelong reader of C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia." He commented that the book is made interesting by the uneven course of her "love affair" with Lewis's writing; he notes that she admits she is not a Christian, despite her Catholic upbringing. She was therefore surprised to find that when as an adult she re-read the ''Narnia'' books, they had not lost their power, prompting her to write this book to explain why. In the book she both reflects on her own experience and interviews other authors and friends on the subject. John D. Riley, writing in ''Against the Grain'', described ''Literary Wonderlands'' as both "a checklist and guide to essential utopian, dystopian and speculative fiction that you have always been meaning to read" and "a valuable scholarly look back at familiar books and a fresh look forward to more adventurous reading in the future." The reviewer praised the attention to detail in the analyses of the various works, and found the way the book set the works in context was useful and interesting.Riley, John D.
Wryly Noted-Books About Books
. ''Against the Grain'' vol. 29 no. 5 (2017), article 17, pp. 44, 46. DOI: 10.7771/2380-176X.7845

Bibliography

Books

* *

Essays, reporting and other contributions

* * * * * * Online version is titled "

Jeff VanderMeer Jeff VanderMeer (born July 7, 1968) is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy. The tr ...

amends the apocalypse". * Online version is titled "'Golden Hill' : a crackerjack novel of old Manhattan". * Online version is titled "'Tangerine' : a début novel that delights in excess". * Online version is titled "A twisted fairy tale about toxic masculinity". * Online version is titled "A début novel remixes the trope of the missing girl".

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Laura Living people American essayists American literary critics Women literary critics American women essayists American women journalists Salon (website) people The New York Times writers The New Yorker people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women American women critics