Mary Shelley
Someone discovered a handful of previously unpublished letters written by Mary Shelley, stashed in private house in a small English village.
The Language Wars
As a society becomes increasingly unstable, linguistic innovation happens more rapidly.
A George Saunders Outtake
George Saunders' trademark dark humor is especially on display in this "deleted scene" from the novella Pastoralia, available for free here.
Kathleen Collins and Black Women’s Sexuality
A new book is getting a lot of attention in the literary world right now…although its author died ...
How Slaughterhouse-Five Made Us See the Dresden Bombing Differently
The bombing of Dresden, Germany, which began February 13, 1945, was once viewed as a historical footnote. Until Slaughterhouse-Five was published.
Edgar Allan Poe and the Power of a Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe knew that readers would add their visual image of the author to his work to create a personality that informed their reading.
Zadie Smith
Ever since the publication of White Teeth, Zadie Smith has made a career of writing about the actual experiences behind topics like race and immigration.
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison, the first African American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born to working-class ...
James Joyce, Catholic Writer?
James Joyce remains a novelist whose characters are imbued with a Catholic world view, despite declaring himself to be a freethinking heretic.
George Orwell’s 1984
George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 finds itself at the top of the best-seller lists this week, the first of Trump's presidency.