The work of art helps us see the world anew–this is no less true for books than it is for a painting or sculpture. Our Marketing and Communications Director picks 10 books that are rich in detail–books that think about flowers and bees, as well as human relationships. These novels will make you laugh as well as reflect on the harder points of being human. And they will certainly entertain you.
Read More
Robert Frost is undoubtedly a New England poet, a realist poet who portrays the region in minute detail. And he’s given us iconic, seemingly straightforward lines: “The road not taken,” and “Good fences make good neighbors,” are just two. But his poems are all about negotiating language and complexity. How can a poem help us think about perspective and comparison? After all, “all the fun’s in how you say a thing.”
Read More
Books do a lot for us. They entertain us and make us feel less alone. They illuminate larger truths about the human story. They are a connection to and depiction of those combined qualities–magic and messiness–that make humans, well, human (and wonderful). Our Operations Coordinator picks 10 books to befriend, to reread, and to help you appreciate what it is to be a person.
Read More
How can you read a place? What is the value in reading for dystopic places– “communities and territories that have been silenced, broken, or contaminated?” And what does a western American town have in common with a Soviet prison city? Kate Brown bridges the gaps between peoples and cultures by reading for commonality in the unlikeliest places.
Read More
What would you read if you were stuck on the proverbial desert island? What would make you laugh? What would sustain you? What speaks to your experience and reminds you who you are? Program and Curriculum Director Jessica Isaac lists her picks.
Read More
We are all taught the classics in school, so what’s the problem with reading only canonical literature? What is the value in going outside of your comfort zone, literary or otherwise? And why might moving outside that zone be necessary to understanding the world in all its fullness and complexity? On stories and power, and how that power shapes us . . .
Read More
Creativity in general aligns with our sense of why literature is important for readers and writers–it flexes our thinking capabilities and connects us to others. As Polly Car notes, the power of creativity is, in part, “To see yourself small on the stage of another story; to see the vast expanse of the world that is not about you, and to see your power to make your life, to make others, or to break them, to tell stories rather than be pulled by them.”
Read More
I found myself becoming resentful of the little house and its unwillingness to adapt to the realities of the city growing up around it. I was frustrated that the house had to have it all quiet and peaceful in the country, like an idyllic pastoral life was the only life worth living.
Read More
This week, we remember Alf, become fixated on eggo waffles and David Hume, and touch on the Jane Austen Festival, podcasts, diversity in publishing, and “Defenders of Wonder.”
Read More
It is a truth universally acknowledged that even book lists with titles like “100 Best Novels” must be incomplete. But what gets left out? And why? Our resident Victorianist takes on The Guardian’s recent “100 Best Novels” list, pointing out its dearth of early women novelists and offering some substitutes. Her favorites? Novels about slave rebellions, Regency scandals and shocking nineteenth-century sensations.
Read More