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Circadian Novels (01/17)
Nicola Yoon's The Sun Is Also a Star is an example of a circadian novel where the main action (except flashbacks, for instance) takes place all on one day. The most celebrated example is James Joyce's Ulysses (1922), set in 1904 Dublin on what has come to be known as 'Bloomsday,' June 16th. The protagonist, Leopold Bloom, mostly wanders ...
Secret Identities Revealed - Children of the Holocaust (01/17)
Of the many forms of resistance during WWII, some of the most fascinating and poignant stories involve hiding young Jewish children – including the most famous of them all, that of Anne Frank. While her story reached international acclaim, other tales went untold for decades, partially because many of them took place in countries ...
What is Jihad? (01/17)
In The Kindness of Enemies, Leila Aboulela's twenty-first century protagonist Natalie asks: 'How did this historical change in the very definition of jihad come about?' This question is developed thematically though the historical storyline in Aboulela's novel which features Imam Shamil, a mid-nineteenth century Muslim leader of mountain...
Sherman's March To the Sea (01/17)
Fallen Land is set during the end of the Civil War and describes a landscape in the aftermath of Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's clamp-down of Georgia through which he delivered one of the definitive end points of the war between Union and Confederate forces.
Fallen Land describes the ravages wrought by the General's tactics, ...
The Great Tulip Mania (01/17)
Since the beginning of time, humanity has been enchanted by – and paid a small fortune to possess – rare and beautiful objects: diamonds, gold, emeralds…and tulips.
At the peak of the 'Great Dutch Tulip Mania of 1637,' an event which is covered in The Confidence Game, the most desirable tulip bulbs commanded ...
Apex, North Carolina - One of the Best Places to Live in America (01/17)
When Dr. Clarice Watkins sets out to academically scrutinize one of the 'Best Places to Live in America,' she notes that the criteria for making the list include 'Good quality of life,' along with 'Quiet and safe.' For many years, Money magazine has compiled its own annual roundups of the 'Best Places to Live.' According to Money, their ...
The French Enlightenment (01/17)
The intellectually febrile period between the early 1600s and the late 1700s which saw an unsurpassed expansion in humankind's understanding of the world around us, particularly in the arenas of science (especially physics), and social and political philosophy, later came to be known as The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of ...
Kenneth Lochhead's "Flight and Its Allegories" and the Gander International Airport (01/17)
If you flew on a transatlantic flight at some point in the mid-twentieth century, odds are you found yourself at Gander International Airport in Gander, Newfoundland, on at least one leg of your journey. For years, before the advent of wide-body jets with higher fuel capacity, Gander was the main refueling stop for aircraft bound for the ...
What's That Mess in the Mess Hall? (01/17)
'The chow hall was a big white magnet north of the shopping gulch, a massive canopy that seemed to hover over the pale sands. Part circus tent, part martial pretense, it was ringed by blast walls and protected by counterbattery radar. It could serve over a thousand soldiers at a time and up to fifteen thousand a day, not including the ...
Arts Education Empowers Youth with Disabilities (01/17)
Aristotle once said, 'Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.' Those words were uttered nearly 2,400 years ago, but they are still relevant today. Education that gives meaning is the kind of learning that we remember. Today, art education is one place where teenagers learn about the world surrounding them ...
Mohammad Mossadegh (01/17)
In Gardens of Consolation, one of the main characters becomes a supporter of Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, who served from 1951 – 1953 until he was ousted in a coup d'état backed by the American CIA and the British SIS.
Mossadegh was born in Tehran in 1882 into a well-connected ...
Dorothea Dix: Passionate Advocate for the Mentally Ill (01/17)
One of the main themes in A Question of Mercy is mental illness. And if you search for information on its history in the United States, the name Dorothea Dix keeps appearing.
In 1802, Dorothea Dix was born into a reportedly unhappy home in Hampden, Maine. Her parents were neglectful alcoholics: her mother was incapacitated by severe ...
The Jazz Age: A Quick Tour (01/17)
A Certain Age is set in the 1920s in America, known as the Jazz Age.
The author F. Scott Fitzgerald whose novel, The Great Gatsby was one of the defining publishing events of the decade, labeled the Jazz Age so because jazz as a music form became increasingly popular during this time especially in big cities like New York and Chicago.
...
The Farallon Islands (01/17)
The Lightkeepers is set on the Farallon Islands, which are officially part of the city of San Francisco. Even though they are located just about thirty miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge, the islands are quite remote. 'There is nowhere more alone than the Farallon Islands,' Geni writes in The Lightkeepers, 'The rest of the world might ...
The Hotel Metropol (12/16)
In
A Gentleman in Moscow, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is sentenced to live the rest of his life within the walls of his current residence – Moscow's
Hotel Metropol.
One of the oldest hotels in Russia, the Metropol was originally named the Chelyshy after its owner, Pyotr Chelyshev, who opened the facility as a bath house and ...
Jim Crow Laws (12/16)
Patrick Phillips' non-fiction book Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America examines a specific rape and murder of a white girl that occurred in 1912, in Forsyth County, Georgia. It also examines, more broadly, the South during that time. Following the end of the Civil War and the passage of Constitutional Amendments Thirteen ...
A Brief Recent History of Belarus (12/16)
The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko deals with the aftermath of Chernobyl and is set in a hospital in Belarus.
While most of us think of Belarus as a part of the now fragmented Soviet Union, the country has a colorful history of being handed back and forth between Poland and Russia for centuries. Belarus was part of Poland (which ...
Lung Cancer (12/16)
The late Paul Kalanithi, a non-smoking neurosurgeon, was diagnosed with squamous cell lung cancer. When Breath Becomes Air is his autobiography.
'Cancer' is a name given to a collection of diseases in which a set of cells in the body begin dividing abnormally and without stopping. Unlike their healthy counterparts, cancer cells lack ...
Reiving (11/16)
In the 14th century, the land on either side of the border between England and Scotland became known as the 'Border Country' or 'The Borders.' This area, where Fair Helen is set, was frequently used as a thoroughfare by English and Scottish armies, and consequently the residents were constantly impoverished as the militias sought to ...
A Funambulist By Any Other Name (11/16)
It seems that as long as there have been human beings and rope there has been the urge to string that rope between two posts or trees or buildings or things of any sturdy sort and walk - heel to toe - across the span.
For the ancient Greeks it held the appeal of balance offset by danger and, of course, the physical challenge. Though ...
Ancient Apartment Buildings (11/16)
Fishbowl is set in a high-rise apartment building.
The contemporary apartment building has evolved over hundreds of years to its current avatar, sleek structures fashioned with high-tech materials and serviced by powerful elevators.
It is believed that the first apartment buildings were built by the Romans two thousand years ago...
Flash Floods (11/16)
Flash flooding is a constant concern in The Never-Open Desert Diner.
A flash flood is a sudden release of water that inundates an area, and is differentiated from a normal flood by its duration; by definition, a flash flood lasts less than six hours. Although they can occur under a wide variety of circumstances they're especially ...
Thorstein Bunde Veblen (11/16)
The economist Thorstein Bunde Veblen, a frequent point of reference (and the main character's namesake) in Elizabeth McKenzie's The Portable Veblen, was born in Wisconsin in 1857. Veblen is famous for the concept of 'conspicuous consumption,' or spending more on things than they are worth to make a show of one's class.
He was the ...
Diego Velázquez's Contemporaries (11/16)
Diego Velázquez (1599 - 1660) was a painter in the court of Spain's Philip IV during the Spanish Golden Age (Siglo de Oro), a period influenced by the Italian Renaissance, during which the arts flourished throughout the country. The exact dates of the Spanish Golden Age vary by commentator, but it began no earlier than 1492 with ...
Prohibition in Vermont (11/16)
Press, the protagonist of In the Country of the Blind, lives in Vermont near a forgotten trail that rum-runners used to smuggle alcohol into the United States during Prohibition. 'The Nobel Experiment,' as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was called, was an attempt at social engineering lasting from 1920 to 1933.
Section 1 ...
Bat Mitzvah (11/16)
One of the stories in Robert Oldshue's November Storm is about a 12-year old girl who is about to become a Bat Mitzvah. Most people have heard of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah – a Jewish rite of passage; a time when boys and girls are formally welcomed into the adult community. The word mitzvah means commandment or law, as well as good deed; ...
Parenting a Prodigy (11/16)
In Gilly Macmillan's The Perfect Girl, seventeen-year old Zoe Maisey is a musical prodigy. Her genius, Zoe says, is 'temptingly bright' to other people but she sounds a strong note of caution: 'Be careful what you wish for, because everything has a price.' Her mother and stepfather, she explains 'are disguising a level of ambition for ...
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (11/16)
When English clergyman Reverend David Railton spied a British grave marked 'Unmarked British Soldier' in 1916, he developed the idea for a national war memorial. It would take until 1920, however, for his idea to come to fruition, but this proved to be the perfect time. Two years after the end of World War I there were still tens of ...
The Challenges of Genius (11/16)
In A Doubter's Almanac, Hans Andret, a mathematical genius, checks into a rehab facility, seeking treatment for his addiction. In a counseling session, his therapist, Matthew, asks Hans why he suddenly brought his addiction out in the open and suggests that Hans wished to be caught.
When Hans protests that such a notion would be ...
America's First Ransom Note (11/16)
In People of the Broken Neck, a series of mysterious messages, scribbled in salt, follow the Sawyers as they flee from the authorities all across the country. Cryptic communications, especially when interlinked with crimes, have always been intriguing, and the ones in this novel reminded me of ransom notes even if they make no overt ...
Michel Houellebecq in Profile (11/16)
Michel Houellebecq (pronounced mish-elle wellbeck) is nothing if not an autobiographical writer. He has, in fact, become the poster child for a movement, prevalent in contemporary French literature, known as 'auto-fiction' which sees authors unashamedly use fictionalized versions of their own lives in their novels. Autobiographical ...
The Hokule'a (11/16)
In
Pacific, author Simon Winchester closes with the image of the vessel
Hokule'a, which he views as a symbol of hope for the people of the Pacific Islands and a physical manifestation of a return of respect for indigenous traditions.
The Hokule'a is built in the tradition of the ancient Hawaiian double-hulled voyaging canoe known as
wa...
Galvanism (11/16)
Who would have thought that one frog could have such a huge impact on science?
As bizarre as it sounds, that was exactly the case. In the late eighteenth century, a scientist named Luigi Galvani performed an experiment on a frog, making a slight cut just beneath the frog's skin to expose nerve cells. When the scalpel came into contact ...
Occupy Wall Street (11/16)
Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size Of a Fist is built around the 1999 street protest in Seattle against the World Trade Organization. Its core message of capitalism and globalization smothering the lifeblood out of an individual has been mirrored in demonstrations before and since, most notably in the Occupy Wall Street movement that was ...
Blind Runners (11/16)
'I don't need a saint to run with, just someone willing and able and most of all, fast.' When Parker, the main character in Eric Lindstrom's debut novel Not If I See You First, begins to contemplate making the switch from running on her own in an empty field at the crack of dawn to joining the track team, she knows she'll need ...
What Defines a Novel? (10/16)
Many of the reviews of Strout's latest novel,
My Name is Lucy Barton, have called it a 'slim volume.' Some might even say that its length of just over 200 pages makes it a novella not a novel. This raises the question, what page/word count defines a novel?
Opinions on this differ widely. For example,
Writer's Digest suggests to ...
Kurt Cobain (10/16)
In 'Nirvana,' the opening story in Adam Johnson's
Fortune Smiles, the main character's wife, Charlotte, is paralyzed from the shoulders down. She lies in bed and listens to the rock band Nirvana, as if the band's frontman, Kurt Cobain, was the only person who could understand her despair.
'It's not you,' she says. 'I just need my ...
Nuclear Waste in Yucca Mountain (10/16)
In Gold Fame Citrus, the Yucca mountain, which is located in the deserts of Nevada, an hour northwest of Las Vegas, has officially become a nuclear waste depository: 'The white bullet trains come in and out thrice daily, soundless, only a slight pressing and unpressing of the air. One day the repository will be filled and it will be ...
The Tridevi in Hinduism (10/16)
The Opposite of Everyone is peppered with elements from Hinduism, most prominently with references to the goddess Kali who is widely revered among Hindus for her ability to quell chaos during dark times (read '
Beyond the Book' for
The Strangler Vine to learn more about Kali).
According to the tenets of Hinduism, the Supreme Being ...
Shakespearean Insults (10/16)
'You taught me language. And my profit on't is, I know how to curse.' That's the lament of Caliban, the resident savage of Shakespeare's The Tempest, but it's also the the savvy modern reader's takeaway of Shakespeare's plays. Among the linguistic legacies of Shakespeare, eloquent and eclectic cursing and insults must certainly be ...
Perfecting Humanity - The British Eugenics Movement (10/16)
As mentioned in Anna Hope's historical novel The Ballroom, just over 100 years ago in 1912, London hosted the first International Eugenics Conference, an event attended by people who believed in the prevention of those deemed inferior – whom they labeled 'feeble-minded' – from reproducing. It was a categorization ...
Struwwelpeter (10/16)
In
The Gustav Sonata, Gustav and Anton share a love of the German children's book,
Struwwelpeter, which was written by Dr Heinrich Hoffmann in 1844. NPR
noted that
Struwwelpeter 'set the stage for children's book classics like
Where the Wild Things Are and the beloved
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.'
There have been countless ...
Anegada - BVI (10/16)
Set on the remote British Virgin Island (BVI) of Anegada,
Sun, Sand, Murder is a mystery novel that owes much to its setting.
Anegada is the northernmost island of the BVI archipelago chain (click map for larger image). Of the inhabited islands, Anegada is the only one made of coral and limestone, instead of being volcano-created like...
Eccentric British Noblemen (10/16)
William John Cavendish-Bentinck-Scott, 5th Duke of Portland and the eponymous 'Dead Duke' of Piu Marie Eatwell's book, was undeniably eccentric. He was extremely reclusive, never inviting anyone to his home at Welbeck Abbey and prohibiting his servants and workmen from acknowledging his presence in any way (any who did were immediately ...
Cyprus: Divided Loyalties (10/16)
One of the many historical events that are featured glancingly in A Strangeness in My Mind is the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
For a long time Cyprus was a part of the Ottoman Empire, which arguably explains why Turkey considered it its own, even after the Ottoman Empire handed over governance of the island to Great Britain in ...
Wallace Stevens (10/16)
The title of the story collection,
Thirteen Ways of Looking, is a reference to a poem,
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. This poem, a stanza of which prefaces each chapter of McCann's novella, was written by Wallace Stevens in 1923.
Stevens, an American poet, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1879. A Harvard graduate and ...
The Thorne Rooms (10/16)
In The Making of Home, Judith Flanders argues that it can be difficult to know what ordinary homes throughout history looked and felt like, in part because museums with 'period rooms' tend to devote precious space to recreating the opulent homes of wealthy figures from the past. Perhaps it's much more fun to look at ceilings replete ...
The Yakhchal (10/16)
Long before the advent of the refrigerator, around 400 BCE, the ancient Persians had figured out a way of making ice and having it readily available even over the summer. At its most basic, the solution took advantage of the low humidity and cool desert nights, especially in winter, to make ice and then store it in an insulated building ...
Childhood Food Novels (10/16)
When my sister, Meridith, was little my parents' frequent dinner table entreaty was that she stop playing with her food. But she was an unstoppable force (a picture of her as a baby shows her pointing a crooked finger at the camera as if to warn the world to beware because she had lots of things to say and do). Mom and Dad soon gave up on...
Novelist as Method Writer (09/16)
The Novelist by W.H. Auden
Encased in talent like a uniform,
The rank of every poet is well known;
They can amaze us like a thunderstorm,
Or die so young, or live for years alone.
They can dash forward like hussars: but he
Must struggle out of his boyish gift and learn
How to be plain and awkward, how to be
One after whom none...
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