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Tay-Sachs Disease (03/14)
At the age of nine months, Emily Rapp's son Ronan was diagnosed with a deadly disease called Tay-Sachs. The disease is caused by the lack of a vital enzyme called hexosaminidase-A (Hex-A); the result is a progressive buildup of a fatty substance in nerve cells that causes destructive neurological decline and eventually death. There is no ...
Trick or Treat? How Food Companies (and Grocery Stores) Get You to Buy (03/14)
Ever wonder why there are so many varieties of Coke? Even the most basic grocery store can boast that it carries Coca Cola Classic, Cherry Coke, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero and maybe even Vanilla Coke. Years ago, the company promised that by 2015 it would have a thousand varieties of Coke all over the world. Whether that promise comes to ...
Victorian Workhouses (03/14)
In the early nineteenth century in England, parish churches and towns provided relief for the poor, but as the cost of looking after them kept rising and the method became increasingly disorganized, the upper classes and growing middle class who carried the burden of this expense by paying increasingly higher property taxes, sought a ...
The City of Kielce (03/14)
Much of The Lullaby of Polish Girls is set in the Polish city of Kielce (pronounced Kyell-tsay). The author, Dagmara Dominczyk, is a native of the city and she paints a beautiful picture of Kielce, not just of its tourist attractions but of small draws favored by locals like the Relaks cafe where 'families and tourists flooded the place ...
Animal Rights and Activism (03/14)
People have debated the rights of animals since early times. The relationship between people and animals has generated many different and widely varying perspectives. Here's a quick trek through some of them, following in animals' footsteps – whether four-footed or two:
In the 6th century BCE, Pythagoras taught that both animals ...
Famous Literary Spats (03/14)
When famous figures spar, their words become part of the public record, particularly when those quarrelling are popular writers.
Ernest Hemingway, for example, was notorious for his antagonistic relationship with many of his contemporaries. While once close, he had a disagreement with his mentor Gertrude Stein over their differing ...
A Taste of Northern Germany (03/14)
Katharina Hagena has set The Taste of Apple Seeds in a rural corner of northwest Germany, in the fictional farming village of Bootshaven. Geographical clues in the novel place Bootshaven in the state of Lower Saxony, in the North German plain region south of Hamburg and north of Bremen. It's a terrain not unlike the low-lying plains ...
The Irish Economy, Boom and Bust (03/14)
Although the 2008 financial crisis that provides the background to Donal Ryan's The Spinning Heart had worldwide repercussions, the effects were felt particularly heavily in Ireland. The crash was preceded by a time of great prosperity in the country, such that the booming economy was given the nickname of the 'Celtic Tiger,' comparing it...
The Sickness of Denial (02/14)
Helga's Diary is an important book because it protects the truth of our human
past, and truth has often been in danger. 'In war, truth is the first casualty.' Any great conflict brings us to the same confrontation with distortion, lies, and historical reconstruction.
In 2000, a libel trial took place in Great Britain. David Irving, a...
Predicting the End of the World (02/14)
The end is nigh!
Or so has been the claim for many years. And despite a success rate of zero, people continue to make passionate end of the world predictions, looking for the Apocalypse in just about every major turn of events from Y2K to Weapons of Mass Destruction to the ending of the Mayan Calendar. In fact, according to a survey ...
Ibsen's A Doll's House (02/14)
It was the door slam that reverberated around the world. In 1879, Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, published the famous play A Doll's House. The play, in three acts, revolves around Nora Elman, who balances a delicate secret while trying to save her marriage. Eventually the secret is revealed as is the nastiness of her husband. Sick of...
Notable Novels About Hollywood (02/14)
In 'Illuminati,' one of the stories in Jim Gavin's short story collection, college dropout and writer, Sean, describes the experience of selling his first and only script. 'Two years ago, all my dumb ideas and tenuous connections came together. I sold a screenplay to a finance company that was developing a project for a pair of comedians&...
Glorious Failures (02/14)
Tanis Rideout's Above All Things is part of an important tradition in human history and literature. The deaths of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine continue the fascination we have with glorious failures and heroic misadventures.
The Iliad's Hector
The Iliad, one of the first works of Western Literature, celebrates the death of ...
La Belle Epoque (02/14)
The more than forty year period from the early 1870s to the beginning of World War I saw peace across much of Europe. Fueled by the continuing advancements of the Industrial Revolution, the era was marked by optimism and prosperity - for some. In France, this period is known as La Belle Époque, 'the beautiful age', a description ...
An Early Career as a Geophysical Engineer (02/14)
George Saunders is well known for his inventive use of language; perhaps his willingness to explore and exploit the forms and function of language derives in part from his earlier career, as a geophysical engineer. Saunders credits his early exposure to the works of Ayn Rand (some of the first fiction he recalls reading) with his decision...
Small-Town Wonders (02/14)
In
All That Is, just after World War II, one of Bowman's good friends is so captivated by the village of Piermont, New York that he buys a house close to the water and watches the Hudson river flow by from his home. The town, in New York's Rockland County, is picturesquely framed by the Hudson river on one side and the
Tallman Mountain ...
The Second Chechen War and the Lead-Up to It (02/14)
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is set primarily during the Second Chechen War, which started August 1999.
The second war had its roots in the First Chechen War (aka the War in Chechnya). At the heart of this initial conflict – and indeed the one that followed - was the
relationship of Chechnya to Russia.
Chechnya was ...
Kimberly, South Africa and its Diamond Industry (02/14)
The discovery of diamonds in Kimberley changed the course of South African history. Prior to this find, South Africa was a colonial outpost that was sparsely populated by Europeans and native tribes.
The Dutch East India Company established a colony at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 with the purpose of resupplying Company ships. ...
The Restoration of The Last Supper (02/14)
The Last Supper, completed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1498, is one of Western civilization's great cultural touchstones. Housed in the
refectory of the Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, this late 15th century work was commissioned as part of planned renovations to the convent and church buildings by da Vinci's patron, ...
The Comanches (02/14)
One of the main characters in The Son is kidnapped by Comanches and lives as a member of the Kotsoteka tribe.
The word Comanche is thought to be a Spanish corruption of Kohmahts, the Ute term for enemy (the Ute and the Comanche conducted a sporadic 50 year war against each other during the middle of the 18th century). Those referred to...
Toussaint l'Ouverture (02/14)
François-Dominique Toussaint l'Ouverture was born circa 1743 in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (which would later become Haiti) to an educated slave named Gaou-Guinou, who was probably a member of the African Arrada tribe. According to biographer D. Augustus Straker (1908), 'So remarkable were [l'Ouverture's] traits of character...
L. Jagi Lamplighter (01/14)
L. Jagi Lamplighter spent 15 years writing, re-writing, and revising her Prospero's Daughter trilogy before the first volume was published in 2009.
In an article entitled '
A Writer's Odyssey,' she describes her journey from hopeful writer to published author. Another article, '
All About the Wonder,' explains why Ms. Lamplighter writes ...
The Blitz (01/14)
A significant and arresting section in the second half of Life After Life occurs during the period of the German bombings of London during World War II known as 'The Blitz.' This period between September 1940 and May 1941 was a time of fear, destruction and collective British determination. The nickname comes from the German word '...
Sundown Towns (01/14)
Don't let the sun set on YOU.
This is typical wording on a sign at the edge of what was called a 'sundown town', which gained its name because these towns required people of color to leave their perimeters – not surprisingly – by sundown. These towns, found throughout the USA not just in the South, were explicitly all-white ...
The Grotesque in Literature (01/14)
Although 'grotesque' has become a general adjective for the strange or disturbing, and can be seen in various art forms from literature to architecture, the term also refers to a sub-genre of
Southern Gothic literature. This literature utilizes themes of disturbing characters, haunting landscapes, and sinister events (all elements of ...
Pick Your Favorite Best Selling Self-Help Book Quote (01/14)
Each chapter of Peter Herman's fictional self-help book, Marriage Is a Canoe, ends with an aphorism such as 'Compromise keeps your canoe steady. Compromise and you'll never go in circles.'
Publications categorized as self-help or personal development books have been among the very best-selling books for decades. Here are some quotes ...
Midwifery (01/14)
Hieroglyphics and even cave drawings testify to the fact that from time immemorial women in the throes of bringing forth the next generation have been tended by other women - either trained in the art of delivery or not. From the book of Genesis when Rachel's midwife predicted that she would bear a son (35-17) to Exodus where midwifery ...
The 2004 Tsunami and Its Effects on Sri Lanka (01/14)
Wave is not a linear account of the tsunami, and because the author's stark focus is internal, the disaster and events in the months and years that followed, are often hazy. Because of this, it's worth taking a look at the magnitude and nature of the tsunami the author survived.
A tsunami is a series of giant waves caused either by an ...
Fiction as Social Catalyst (01/14)
In 2012, Susan Nussbaum won the
PEN/Bellwether for Socially Engaged Fiction. This award, which was established in 2000 by Barbara Kingsolver, was created to 'promote fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships.' The award is given to an author of a not yet published novel ...
How to Keep a Commonplace Book (01/14)
Min's narrative-through-objects reminded me of a 'commonplace book' I kept in high school at the urging of my (wonderful) 10th grade English teacher. Commonplace books became very popular during the Renaissance, used as a kind of intellectual filing system, whereby one collected poems, proverbs, quotes, and other material around a ...
Who Speaks For Me? (01/14)
Hamlet says, at the opening of Shakespeare's play:
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
By the final act, he says:
...
Prison Pen Pal Programs (01/14)
In Annabel Pitcher's YA novel, Ketchup Clouds, the protagonist, a fifteen-year-old English girl who uses the pseudonym 'Zoe,' tells her story through secret letters she writes to a death row inmate. Mr. S. Harris lives thousands of miles away in Houston, Texas and is one of the only people who might understand Zoe's situation; he knows ...
Cold Antarctica, a Tourism Hot Spot (12/13)
Where'd You Go Bernadette has much talk about Antarctica, the coldest, windiest, driest desert continent on earth. Located around the South Pole, Antarctica covers an area of 5.1 million square miles (larger than the US, as well as the continents of Europe or Australia) and has a thick ice cap that has built over millions of years.
...
Dignitas (12/13)
At the center of Me Before You is an intensely emotional and ethical debate about assisted suicide; and in particular, of the assisted-death organization, Dignitas, which plays a primary role in the story. Dignitas, founded near Zurich, Switzerland in 1998, has as its motto 'to live with dignity – to die with dignity.' The ...
Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea (12/13)
Anne Morrow Lindbergh is, of course, the aviator's wife in the new novel of the same name by Melanie Benjamin. She is also the author of the widely acclaimed book, Gift from the Sea, which was first published in 1955. Anne Lindbergh wrote it while in Florida, on Captiva Island, and she used the shells on the beach – as a metaphor ...
Alice Munro's Canada (12/13)
Alice Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario, a small town that is close to the shores of Lake Huron. This region of southern Ontario is west of Toronto and east of Michigan, and includes the industrial cities of London and Windsor, though much of the land is countryside. While Munro did occasionally live in Vancouver, most of her life has ...
Animals in Contemporary Literary Fiction (11/13)
Even if the book might not quite be
about them,
Magnificence, like much of Millet's fiction, features animals prominently. When asked about her use of animals in her novels, Millet said, in an
interview with
Bookforum:
'We lose the subject of animals when we move out of childhood. In childhood animals are all around us, and then we ...
Amy McNamara (11/13)
Amy McNamara is a Midwesterner who moved to Brooklyn where she lives with her husband, the artist Doug McNamara, and their two children.
She has an MFA in Poetry and was published first as a poet, but was a writer of prose before all of that. At eight she wrote her first story about a cricket hanging onto the hood ornament of her ...
BookBrowse Interview with Jim Crace (11/13)
Harvest seems to be set in an era when English society is evolving from use of land to grow crops to enclosed pastures for animals. What about this specific time period did you find compelling as a setting for your novel? Could it have been set in any other time and place?
The time period isn't all that specific, in fact. I wasn't ...
Thinkers Whose Theories are Critical to Burkeman's The Antidote (11/13)
The Antidote introduces readers to numerous intriguing thinkers, past and present. Here is a short sampling with brief introductions:
Daniel Wegner – professor of psychology at Harvard and director of the Mental Control Laboratory at the University. Wegner's studies concentrate on what he calls 'the precisely counterintuitive ...
Restitution and Restorative Justice (11/13)
Tara Conklin's novel The House Girl weaves two stories together: 17-year-old Josephine, a slave who flees a tobacco farm in West Virginia in 1852, and Lina, a lawyer seeking reparations for the descendants of African American slaves in 2004. While the idea of reparations is not new, it has gained more of a spotlight within the last decade...
Detroit's Memorable Murals (11/13)
Even as Detroit City might be having a rejuvenation of sorts by attracting increasing numbers of artists, it is worth looking back to the Great Depression when a Mexican mural artist, Diego Rivera, created the city's most iconic art: the set of murals known as Detroit Industry.
Back in the early '30s Edsel Ford (son of Henry Ford) was ...
Roddy Doyle (11/13)
Born in 1958 in Dublin, Roddy Doyle is a prolific Irish writer who has found over two decades-worth of material in the humorous, tender, and fraught life of the family. Americans may be most familiar with Doyle's wise-cracking dialog and its lilting Dublin intonations from the popular film adaptations of his
Barrytown Trilogy:
The ...
Paul Auster's Brooklyn (11/13)
Paul Auster is well-known as a Brooklyn writer. In Winter Journal, he writes of first moving to Brooklyn in 1980 after enduring stints in suburbia and an overpriced rental in Manhattan: 'Why hadn't you thought of this in 1976? you wondered … but the fact was that Brooklyn had never ever crossed your mind back then, for New York was ...
The Electric Car in Its - Old and New? - Heyday (11/13)
Before there was Henry Ford's Model T, there was the Detroit Electric Car Company's Tornado. It is protagonist Will Anderson's pride and joy in D. E. Johnson's Detroit Shuffle. Johnson's fictional Anderson is supposedly the son of the actual founder of Detroit Electric, William C Anderson. Even today, the company is touted as one of the ...
The Canadian Expeditionary Force and the Battle of Vimy Ridge (11/13)
In her introduction to The Cartographer of No Man's Land, P.S. Duffy states that the WWI Battle of Vimy Ridge is 'as iconic to Canadians as Bunker Hill is to Americans.'
The Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) was formed in 1914 to provide support to the British battling overseas. 619,363 Canadians enlisted, of whom 60,661 – ...
Mnemonics (10/13)
In Matt Greene's Ostrich, protagonist Alex Graham is obsessed with mnemonic devices. How did mnemonics get their start?
Simonides of Ceos was a Greek poet in the sixth century B.C. As the story goes, he was asked to recite an ode at a nobleman's banquet. Simonides began his speech, as was customary, by thanking the gods – in this...
The Tasmanian Tiger (10/13)
When Hannah, the narrator of Lois Nowra's
Into That Forest, encounters her first Tasmanian tiger, she is mesmerized:
I turned and there, on the bank not more than ten yards from us, were a wolf creature with yellow fur and black stripes. It were about the size of a real large dog…It had a long muzzle and stripes on its sides like...
The Great Migration (10/13)
The Great Migration describes a large-scale movement of African-Americans out of the South between 1910 and 1970. Hattie, moving from Georgia to Philadelphia, would have no doubt agreed with Pulitzer Prize-winner Isabel Wilkerson's
assessment of the Great Migration as 'six million black Southerners moving out of the terror of Jim Crow to...
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