Why ‘Mansfield Park’ Was Jane Austen’s Best Novel
Modern readers aren’t quite as interested in a tale where virtue is rewarded and vice punished, but it’s her best regardless.
How Jane Austen Pulled Off A Feat Of Genius In ‘Northanger Abbey’
In her satirical take on Gothic fiction, Austen pokes fun at some of the overwrought conventions prevalent at the time, but is careful not to condemn the genre as a whole.
Jane Austen Explains Why Real Life Is More Mysterious Than Fiction
Throughout ‘Northanger Abbey,’ Jane Austen explains why an untempered imagination can be misleading, and why real life is more mysterious than fiction.
Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’ Illustrates Why Manners Matter
Jane Austen finds value in the social conventions of her day throughout the pages of ‘Northanger Abbey,’ because manners do matter.
Why Jane Austen Made An Ordinary Girl The Heroine Of ‘Northanger Abbey’
A woman doesn’t need to be impossibly beautiful or virtuous in order to overcome challenges like a protagonist in a novel.
How Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’ Reveals Her Satirical Genius
Reading ‘Northanger Abbey’ is essential to understanding Jane Austen’s use of satire throughout the entire canon of her books.
Here’s What Happened The Day I Visited James Joyce
On this Bloomsday, I remember the day I met James Joyce, and finally understood what his work has meant to me.
How Tom Wolfe Reinvented Journalism And The Great American Novel
Tom Wolfe set a new standard in both the world of fiction and nonfiction, and with his passing, all we’re left with are pipsqueak visionaries.
Tom Wolfe Was America’s Carnival Barker
Tom Wolfe, the journalist and novelist who died yesterday at 88, was our enthusiastic guide to the raucous and colorful spectacle that is America.
GQ Discredits Whatever Intellect Its Writers Have With Advice To Ignore The Bible
Given that this is the reasoning a seventh grader uses to resist summer reading, the advice casts the maturity of the GQ editors in a dim light.
What Happened When I Retraced Charles Portis’ ‘True Grit’ In Arkansas With The Oxford American
People do not give it credence that a 42-year-old man would head off into such conditions, but I will say it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.
No, Fairy Tales Are Not Morally ‘Ambiguous,’ And That’s Why They’re Worthwhile
We would be remiss if we scratched out the peaks and valleys of human experience inside fairy tales. Not only would it be highly inaccurate, it would not inspire us to anything.
Pulitzer Prize-Winner Claims ‘Super-White’ Children’s Books Ruined His Youth
Looking back, it turns out that no book I ever read was about me. None of that matters when reading fiction. But celebrated author Junot Díaz just doesn’t get it.
How Dante Can Help You Become A Better Reader And Thinker This Year
Following the sage wisdom of Dante Alighieri, communicated through his imagined catechism of Thomas Aquinas, will greatly improve our reading and debating in 2018.
I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1863 ‘I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day’ has been turned into a carol popular at Christmastide. He wrote it on Christmas Day.
What C.S. Lewis Can Teach Us About America’s Pronoun Wars
While the pronoun wars may be new to America, the writings of C.S. Lewis show that the fight over language as a way of controlling the mind is nothing new.
Shrill Critiques Of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Prove It Should Stay In Schools
A recent critique of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by novelist Alice Randall has converted me into a full-throttled defender of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale.
Here’s Proof Left-Wing Poetry Is Just Like Taxes But Less Interesting And More Painful
You can tell a lot about a person’s politics and outlook on life—and mental stability—by looking at the poems he writes.
BBC Lampoons Itself By Erecting Statue Honoring George Orwell
The BBC flatly rejected a previous attempt to erect a statue in 2011, on the grounds that Orwell was too left-wing. Irony is now officially dead.
Why We Still Love Agatha Christie’s ‘Murder On The Orient Express’ 40 Years After Her Death
Agatha Christie’s books have been sold more than a billion times in English. A new version of her ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ opens November 10.
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