Books Tell You Why. All About Collecting Rare Books

Brian Hoey

Writer and all around book nerd, Brian puts his English degree to good use turning words into magic. A great lover of beer, baseball, and books, he can write on Baltic Porter and Katherine Anne Porter with equal ease.

Ten Things You Didn't Know About The Lord of the Rings

By Brian Hoey. Nov 2, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: J. R. R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954, '55) stands today, more than fifty years after its initial publication, as one of the most popular and influential works of all time. Though Tolkien was dedicated to the notion that his sweeping, Beowulf-inspired epic was more akin to history than fantasy, it has effectively shaped the face of modern fantasy in both literature and film, seeping into the broader culture in ways that even Tolkien himself could hardly have foreseen. Here are ten surprising facts about The Lord of the Rings.

Taking Stock of Bonds: The Top Five James Bond Films

By Brian Hoey. Oct 25, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: James Bond, Movie Tie-Ins

It was easy, back in 2012, to think of the just-released Skyfall as an elegant capstone to the long running James Bond film series. It dealt with Bond’s past in a way that showed a certain self-consciousness about the fifty year film legacy of the beloved super spy. It let us bid a teary farewell to Dame Judi Dench as ‘M.’ And, it presented us with a tightly crafted and emotionally gripping story. Now that Spectre, due in theatres this fall, is on the horizon, that feeling seems slightly misguided. More than a farewell, Skyfall may prove to mark a new beginning for a franchise that has captivated audiences for more than half a century. By continuing to dig into the history, not just of the films but of the Ian Fleming-penned novels and short stories, Spectre promises to bring the series full circle — giving the world a James Bond who is at once in the filmic and literary past and future. In honor of its impending release, here is a ranking of the top five James Bond films.

A Brief History of the Nobel Peace Prize

By Brian Hoey. Oct 9, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Nobel Prize Winners

Considered alongside its fellow awards, the Nobel Peace Prize can seem a little vague. While the Nobel Prize in Literature, for example, has often been the subject of controversy, it, like the awards for physics and chemistry, is fairly straightforward. As with those aimed at breakthroughs in the sciences, the award for literature is ostensibly awarded to those achieving the most impressive new heights in the field.

The Nobel Peace Prize, on the other hand, while not referring to a discreet discipline in and of itself, has long been considered a bit nebulous in its intent. Despite that, the Peace Prize has been the highest honor the world bestows upon its most luminary minds — from Dr. Martin Luther King and the Dalai Lama to Malala Yousafzai and Jimmy Carter — for more than a century.

Strangely Familiar: The Invisible Influence of Thomas Wolfe

By Brian Hoey. Oct 3, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Literature

Thomas Clayton Wolfe’s writing is slightly obscure, and bad luck is at least somewhat to blame. While many writers drift in and out of the canon, only a few find themselves supplanted by more popular authors with the same name. Indeed, the Tom Wolfe who penned Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) may have, by dint of sheer SEO, made the resurgence of North Carolina native and early 20th century modernist maestro Thomas Wolfe a little slow in coming. But is it finally the original Thomas Wolfe's time?

The Dramatic Wasteland: T.S Eliot's Forgotten Plays

By Brian Hoey. Sep 26, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Nobel Prize Winners, Drama

“What we have to do is to bring poetry into the world in which the audience lives and to which it returns when it leaves the theatre.” — T.S. Eliot

Nobel Prize-winning poet T.S. Eliot has an influence that is likely too large and too all-encompassing to be measured. It includes nearly every poet who has come after him and some who came before, from Ezra Pound (whose own later work would come to draw influence from that of his protégé) to Billy Collins. What fewer people realize, however, is that Eliot’s influence extended beyond verse and into drama. Indeed, he proved to be one of the last century’s most vocal proponents of the revival of the poetic drama, a genre largely ignored since Elizabethan playwrights like Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

From Curiosity to Canon: Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass

By Brian Hoey. Sep 21, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Legendary Authors, American Literature

When Walt Whitman published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855, it contained just twelve poems. He fronted the money for the publication himself and almost no copies were sold. The now-iconic photo of young, jaunty-hatted Whitman that served in place of the author’s name cast an odd shadow over what were already terribly peculiar poems. At best, the volume of billowing, exuberant free-verse was considered a curiosity. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for instance, appreciated its attempt to revive the spirit of transcendentalism, but found the verse itself a bit loose. At worst, the collection was thought of as an abomination. Poet John Greenleaf Whittier was said to have thrown his copy into a fire. Boston’s District Attorney found the book to be obscene and attempted to suppress it. It even cost Whitman his job after the Secretary of the Interior read it and deemed it offensive.

Allen Drury: Father of the Political Thriller

By Brian Hoey. Sep 2, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Pulitzer Prize

Given the recent popularity of TV shows like The West Wing, House of Cards, and Veep, it can be easy to forget that throughout American history, the public has rarely found Washington D.C.’s political goings on particularly compelling. Case in point, before the 1950s there had been only two major works of American fiction set in the nation’s capitol: Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age (1873) and Henry Adams’ Democracy (1880), each of which was written in the mid-nineteenth century. After decades of relative indifference, however, the New Deal and the rise of Communism finally primed the reading public to latch on to the intrigue and drama that so often attended the business of the nation. When interest in the government arose, Allen Drury was prepared to fill that demand, becoming the father of Washington D.C. fiction in the process.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Notable Quotes

By Brian Hoey. Aug 28, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Poetry, Drama

“More light!” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s last words

In a letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter, the iconic German poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, “All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.” If his words are to be taken at face value, that makes Goethe himself one of the most valuable teachers the world has ever known.

The Quotable Ogden Nash

By Brian Hoey. Aug 19, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Poetry

“How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves.” -Ogden Nash

Truly, Ogden Nash's humor is still alive and well. A look at both his written verse and some of his off-handed remarks is delightful, and it proves just how impeccable his wit and timing continue to be.

Five Facts about Alfred, Lord Tennyson

By Brian Hoey. Aug 6, 2015. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Poetry, Literature

More than a century after his death, Alfred, Lord Tennyson remains one of the Anglophone world’s most popular poets. Poems like "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "Crossing the Bar" have become so ingrained in the cultural consciousness that T.S. Eliot’s remark that Tennyson had "the finest ear of any English poet since Milton" seems a bit backwards. No doubt he had a great sense of the way the English language was used, but he also had a tremendous hand in shaping its usage. By the time Eliot would have imbibed the delectable melancholia that so defines Tennyson’s best work, he would have been used to more and more poets doing their level best to sound an awful lot like Tennyson. Here are some interesting facts about him.