Like many great successes, Watership Down began as a sort of accident. Richard Adams was driving his family to a production of Twelfth Night when his daughter asked him to tell a story. Put on the spot, he began with a humble sentence: “Once upon a time there were two rabbits, called eh, let me see, Hazel and Fiver, and I'm going to tell you about some of their adventures.” Soon enough, the invention of an entire world would follow.
On Mother’s Day, we pay a most humble tribute to our moms. For many of us, the love and care we receive from our mothers has no equal. If it were treated as a debt, we know a lifespan, let alone a day, would not provide nearly enough time to settle it. Luckily, it is no bill to be paid off. It is a ceremony of appreciation and tribute. And what better way to enrich this day than with some books?
Perhaps you’re looking for a last-minute Mother’s Day gift. Perhaps you are a mother yourself looking for a timely read. Whatever the case, see the book ideas below for inspiration.
Before he won the Nobel Prize in 1924, Władysław Reymont lived like a vagabond. Trained to be a tailor, Reymont never worked a day in his trade. Instead, he preferred the company of traveling performers and dreamed of making it in show business. Life on stage took its toll, however, and Reymont returned home penniless and took up jobs he little enjoyed. He kept at his doomed theatrical dreams for a bit longer, that is, before he left them behind to become one of the greatest writers Poland has ever known.
In February, the New York Post discovered Harper Lee had been keeping a Manhattan apartment for ten years. She renewed the lease on the enviable, $900-per-month Upper East Side dwelling just a few months prior to her death. Her neighbors remembered her fondly, noting her love of Sunday crosswords. The local butcher too recalled her kind requests for select cuts of meat. Lee had not visited the apartment since her stroke in 2007, but it is remarkable how this secret had been preserved until the very end. Especially when one considers the public appetite for all things Harper Lee.
Even when they’re successful, some writers prefer to keep their day jobs. For example, Wallace Stevens was an executive at a Connecticut insurance company, and he believed that work kept the poetic spirit properly anchored. Goethe worked as an enthusiastic civil servant and administrator long after the smashing success of Young Werther. To this camp also belongs Geoffrey Chaucer, who stayed gainfully employed despite being a prolific poet. Chaucer’s day job, however, was far from the typical cubical-and-office grind. He worked in the court of the King.
Today marks the anniversary of the start of the Civil War. It began on April 12, 1861 after months of political tension and declarations of secession. It came to a head when the North and South were first brought to conflict at Fort Sumter, a Union base by Charleston, South Carolina. From these fires raged years of bloodshed and war—forming the most harrowing period in the nation’s history. But you probably knew this already.
There is probably no English language book more significant than Shakespeare’s Complete Works. It's impossible to imagine our artistic heritage without this remarkable volume, printed in the first half of the seventeenth century. To this day, Shakespeare remains the most written-about author, and the hardest influence for today's writers to avoid. That is why it is with immense excitement that Books Tell You Why announces its own acquisition of an incredible Shakespeare-signed First Folio.
Wislawa Szymborska, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature, said poetry is something only two in a thousand people really care about. It may have been the poet’s invented statistic, but it doesn’t sound far off the mark. When was the last time, after all, you saw someone in the cafe invested in a collection of verse? A poetic debut tends not to generate the same buzz as a novel or new biography. What gives? Why has the preferred mode of Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare come to be so...neglected?
America has a long history of great writers, but a rather shorter history of paying them. Herman Melville, not unlike Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, died with practically no money from his work. One of the first people to make a writer’s living in this country was Jack London. Most famous for his novel, The Call of the Wild, London was a diverse writer, and he was decidedly prudent in aligning himself with America’s booming periodical industry.
We all know the name, but few know the person. Behind the Caldecott Medal is the legacy of a man named Randolph Caldecott, born in England in 1846. By the end of his life he was a world-famous illustrator whose work sold in the hundreds of thousands. Children loved his drawings, especially adoring the color and energy of his work. Today, the Caldecott Medal honors illustrators who bring joy to children with stories, just as Randolph did 150 years ago. Yet the Caldecott Medal also commemorates what we have been deprived of—Randolph Caldecott had a too-brief career, passing away at the age of only 39.
