In fifth grade, my music teacher asked me to recite a poem during our holiday concert. This meant having to stand in front of my classmates, teachers, and parents, and, I guess, read? I practiced it, but practice always felt like a weird term for that. More like, read it over and over in my…
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced in October that Seattle has been designated a City of Literature. After five years of attempting to secure a bid, Seattle City of Literature finally achieved its goal. Seattle now joins an exclusive group of culturally creative cities across the globe and is the second…
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A school district in Biloxi, Mississippi, recently made waves when it decided to pull Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird from required reading in its school. The reason? The language made students “uncomfortable.” Banning books has long been a problem in the United States and one that (justifiably) infuriates the general public. If we are a…
With Blade Runner 2049 (2017) in theaters right now, stories categorized under the genre of “cyberpunk” have surged in popularity. Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction, usually set in technologically advanced dystopian societies, that incorporates larger themes about the ethics and implications of technology. Soon, Ready Player One will be released as a major…
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Divergent took the young-adult fiction world by storm, spawning two sequels, three movies, and a TV series. If you enjoy dystopian stories riddled with romances, villainous government structures, and page-turning adventure, then you might enjoy these titles too. Legend by Marie Lu The Republic, once known as the United States, is a nation perpetually at…
British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro was recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the highest award a literary author can receive. It is given not for a single piece, but for the collective work throughout an author’s career. The organization that selects the recipient, The Swedish Academy, stated that Kazuo Ishiguro is a writer “who, in…
Photo via Stanford News Stanford University’s “Three Books” program encourages incoming first years to read three selected titles before beginning the school year. This year, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi was chosen as one of them. Gyasi’s debut novel details the lasting effects of slavery, both culturally and generationally. It spans over…
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photo via Business Insider In her 2013 memoir, I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai recounts the profound influence that education has had on her own life and the eventual formation of her life goal: for girls to receive education worldwide. When she was denied education in her home country, Pakistan, she spoke out.…
