One of the best things about books is that they can be about anything. Anything. There are post-apocalyptic stories dating all the way back to ancient times, and a lot of those wild and crazy stories about medieval kings and primordial gods are still being read today (thank you, oral tradition). As it happens, some of the…
Read More "Literary Nostalgia: A Few Favorite Reads from Over the Decades"
In honor of what would be Victor Hugo's 214th birthday (wow), enjoy a tribute to his most famous and longest-lived work, Les Misérables. Let's start by defining what "les misérables" means. The literal translation is "the miserable ones," but there remains the distinct possibility that the thematic significance of the title may still be a mystery. It's likely that…
To be sure, some of the best characters in literature are the so-called "good guys," but let's face it: these goody-goodies are rarely the most interesting characters in the story. Most of us, most of the time, want to see good triumph over evil in the end, but we're really interested in what the villains are…
Read More "Vicious and Delicious: The Best of Literature’s Foulest Characters"
For one often hailed as the Bard of love stories, Shakespeare sure has a weird way of showing/telling it. Even his most famous tale of romance, Romeo and Juliet, is a little...off...in the love department, at least for modern times. Romeo and Juliet isn't the only Shakespeare work that is little bit strange; in fact a pretty large number of his works depict love in ways…
The media shows us two reactions to this little, commercial holiday: 1) the lovey-dovey people feeding each other heart-shaped chocolates into their perfect, air-brushed mouths, and 2) single, bitter people, doubling down on the BOGO chocolate at the local grocery store. Many of us, however, do not adhere to that binary system and enjoy reading love stories,…
We're all familiar with at least some aspects of most fairy tales. After all, who hasn't seen a Disney movie complete with singing princesses and their trusty dancing spoons? To some, these stories are perfection and you don't mess with perfection. But alas, the original creators of these beloved tales weren't thinking about singing teacups…
Read More "The Good, the Bad, and the Gross: Dark Origins of Our Favorite Fairy Tales"
