Books Tell You Why. All About Collecting Rare Books

Twelve Women to Read on International Women's Day

By Adrienne Rivera. Mar 8, 2018. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Horror, Poetry, Pulitzer Prize, Awarded Books, Science Fiction

International Women's Day is celebrated every year on March 8. It was inspired by a National Women's Day held in New York in 1909 as a response to a 1908 march for equal rights undertaken by 15,000 women. However, by the second year, the International Conference of Working Women decided that the holiday should expand worldwide. It was adopted by the United Nations in 1975 and declared an international holiday in all participating states. International Women's Day is dedicated to fighting for gender equality and to celebrating the social, political, and cultural achievements of women. While a common opinion today is that all the battles for women have been won, International Women's Day urges women to fight to close the pay gap, to end violence against women, and to push for more visibility for women both in the workplace and in national and international leadership positions. The following 12 women writers exemplify the goals of International Women's Day in their writing and activism.

Ten Essential Dr. Seuss Quotes

By Adrienne Rivera. Mar 2, 2018. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Poetry, Legendary Illustrators, Children's Books, Pulitzer Prize, Awarded Books

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known by his pen name Dr. Seuss, was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1904. He attended Dartmouth College where he wrote and drew for the Dartmouth Jack-o-Lantern. After he and his friends were caught with gin in the dormitories during prohibition, part of his punishment was being banned from all extracurricular activities. However, he continued to work for the magazine, using for the first time the pen name Seuss.

New Poetry from Wesleyan University Press

By Audrey Golden. Jan 24, 2018. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Poetry, Pulitzer Prize, Awarded Books

Many university presses across the country publish poetry collections, but few university presses are as notable for their poetry publications as Wesleyan University. The Wesleyan University Press began its work in 1957, and although it focuses on a relatively broad range of subjects—from poetry to music and dance to Connecticut history and culture—it is perhaps best known for its important contributions to new poetry and poetics. As the press explains, it has “published an internationally renowned poetry series, collecting five Pulitzer Prizes, a Bollingen, and two National Book Awards in that one series alone.”

What books from the press should you seek out for your poetry collection?

Learning More About the Coretta Scott King Book Award

By Audrey Golden. Dec 15, 2017. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Children's Books, Awarded Books, illustrations

Each year, African American authors and illustrators are honored by the Coretta Scott King Book Award. These awards are “given annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.” The awards are designed to commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the work of his wife, Coretta Scott King, for whom the awards are named. If you collect children’s books or illustrated books, or if you’ve been looking for some important new texts to buy for the kids in your life, we highly recommend looking into the authors and illustrators who have been honored with this award.

A Brief Guide to Great Writers from India

By Brian Hoey. Nov 21, 2017. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Awarded Books, Nobel Prize Winners

India’s literature is just as vast and complex as the diverse, densely populated nation that produced it. Even if we limit ourselves to Indian literature written in English, we are still presented with a multicultural tapestry stretching back more than a century, from Rabindranath Tagore, who won India’s first Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful” poems and songs (eat your heart out Bob Dylan) to modern writers like Aravind Adiga (author of 2008’s Man Booker-winning debut The White Tiger). While one article can never encapsulate the entirety of an ever-growing canon, it can present a few names of writers from India that are indisputably worth knowing.

A Brief Reading Guide to Evelyn Waugh

By Adrienne Rivera. Oct 28, 2017. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Awarded Books, Movie Tie-Ins

English writer Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh, better known as Evelyn Waugh was an expert satirist as well as an accomplished novelist, short story writer, biographer, and travel writer. He was born in London in 1903 though he preferred the country lifestyle and was a schoolteacher before he moved on to writing full time. He often worked as a special corespondent reporting on conflicts, and he served in World War II. Known for his ability to transform the tragedies of life and his brutal war experiences, his work is often satirical, humorous, and deeply moving. After his conversion to Catholicism, his work took on more religions and Catholic subjects and themes. Though his reputation was that of being self-important, mean tempered, and misanthropic, he was also said to exhibit great kindness among his wide circle of friends.

The War that Inspired A Separate Peace

By Adrienne Rivera. Sep 16, 2017. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Awarded Books, American Literature

Author John Knowles was born in West Virginia in 1926 to a well-off family. His family's comfortable living allowed him to go the private preparatory school, Phillips Exeter Academy. Upon graduation, he served for two years in the United States Army Air Force during World War II. He attended Yale University after his service ended and while there, wrote humor stories for The Yale Record. He also worked on the Yale Daily News. He continued his journalism after school with a job at the Hartford Courant and eventually as assistant editor at Holiday. It wasn't until prompted by friend and Pulitzer Prize winning author and playwright Thornton Wilder that he turned his attention seriously toward novels.

Past and Future in Han Kang's Fiction

By Audrey Golden. Sep 9, 2017. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Awarded Books, Literature, History

You might have heard of Han Kang, and maybe you’ve read the English translation of her novel The Vegetarian (the book was published in the original Korean in 2007 with the English translation by Deborah Smith following eight years later in 2015). We’re guessing you might have at least heard of The Vegetarian since it won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for Fiction. The novel feels, in some ways, like a work of dystopian fiction in that it follows a woman who becomes a vegetarian after experiencing violent, bloody impulses all through a narration by her husband. Threads of futuristic writing may run through Han Kang’s fiction, but her work is also deeply permeated by the past. Her most recent novel, Human Acts, reflects upon the Gwanju massacre and its meaning for Korea in the present.

Collecting Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea

By Leah Dobrinska. Sep 2, 2017. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Book Collecting, Awarded Books, American Literature

Cited in the Prize motivation for Hemingway’s 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature and earning him his only Pulitzer, The Old Man and the Sea is one of the legendary author’s most beloved tales. A short story, merely 140 pages in length, The Old Man and the Sea details the excursion of Santiago, a Cuban fisherman. Today, we take a closer look at the publication history of this classic Ernest Hemingway story. Here’s what you should know if you’d like to add an edition of The Old Man and the Sea to your collection.

Four Contemporary Cuban American Writers You Should Be Reading

By Adrienne Rivera. Aug 24, 2017. 9:00 AM.

Topics: Awarded Books, American Literature, Movie Tie-Ins

One of the most well-known Cuban American writers today is Oscar Hijuelos. Interestingly, as a result of a year long hospital stay in his childhood, Hijuelos lost his fluency in Spanish, the language his family spoke at home, but he gained fluency in English. This imbued him with a sense of separation from his culture, a feeling that he imparts in all of his novels. Are you interested in Latin American literature? If so, Hijuelos should definitely be on your list. But what other contemporary Cuban American writers should you be reading?