Can any writer, in literature's past or present, be compared to William Shakespeare? While most scholars would refuse to make such a bold statement, Kwame Anthony Appiah took this daring plunge when he wrote of Chinua Achebe's first novel, "It would be impossible to say how Things Fall Apart influenced African writing. It would be like asking how Shakespeare influenced English writers or Pushkin influenced Russians."
In less than two weeks, Boston will be the place to be for rare and antiquarian book collectors! While the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair and the Boston Books, Print, and Ephemera Show will be the main events, the city is home to a number of literary landmarks that certainly merit spending a few extra days in and around Boston.
The leaves have changed colors, and the air has turned crisp and cool. Sunsets are also coming earlier and earlier. These shorter days mean longer nights--and more time for evening reading! If you love to curl up with a good book, you'll love this list of excellent reading copies, all priced at $20 or under. Many of them are even signed by the author.
Halloween often ranks as people's favorite holiday--after all, who can resist costumes and candy corns? Many of us love the holiday for much spookier reasons; we love those ghosts, goblins, and ghouls. Ghosts have haunted the pages of many a book, including those of some of the best works of world literature. We’ll list ten, beginning with the creepiest, ghouls in BOOOOks! See? You've already had your first scare and we haven't even started the ghostly countdown. Hold on tight--you're about to take a trip through a haunted house full of ghastly literary characters.
It's commonly known that “Frankenstein” was the creation of nineteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Goodwin (later, Shelley) in a contest to create the scariest ghost story as a guest at the Lord Byron’s Italian villa. However, there may be significantly more to the story. There were four separate European scientists who may perhaps have played muse to Mary: Luigi Galvani, Giovanni Aldini, Andew Ure, and perhaps most influentially, Johann Konrad Dippel.
Born in Cuba on October 15, 1923, Italo Calvino became one of Italy’s most famous writers. He was one of a family of scientists; his parents, Mario and Eva, were botanists and his brother, Floriano, became a geologist. When Calvino returned to Italy as a young boy, he faced considerable familial pressure to pursue a life of science.
Excitement has been building about this year's Nobel Prize in Literature! The winner is traditionally announced the second week of October. The Nobel Prize is certainly the most prestigious award in literature, and it's been conferred on the world's best authors since 1901.
On October 1, American author Tom Clancy passed away in Baltimore, Maryland. Renowned for his ability to create stories from the raw material of real-life conflict, Clancy was one of the few authors who built a multi-media empire. Clancy's books found their way into film, television, and even video games.
You might have seen it with our earlier blog posting today:cour blog format has changed! We'd like to hope it improved, though a couple of little bugs are still being worked out.
Set your notification frequency - You now can determine how often and in which format you want to get our blog postings. You can select those in the top right area of our blog, "Notification Frequency":
On August 5, 1930, Neil Alden Armstrong was born near Wapakoneta, Ohio. The future astronaut would be the first man to walk on the moon, and go on to become an author. Check out these ten things you probably didn't know about Armstrong.
