Is Audio Really the Future of the Book?
The upsurge in audiobooks and podcasts illustrates our heightened interest in digital storytelling, but does listening really count as reading?
Melvil Dewey’s Attempt at a Spelling Revolution
Melvil Dewey, of the Dewey Decimal system, thought we should have spelling reform.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow on November 11, 1821. While he also wrote short stories and journalism, the politically-active ...
How The Baby-Sitters Club Reflected Our Dreams of Safety
In The Baby-Sitters Club, each girl has agency.
Bad Language for Nasty Women (and Other Gendered Insults)
Is it true that "nasty" is more likely to be applied to describe women than men?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Black Lives
As historians continue to interrogate slavery’s lasting reverberations, narratives produced by slaves themselves have become a kind of ...
The Spy Novelist Who Was Actually a Spy
The author John le Carré, who real name is David Cornwall, is the subject of both a recent biography and his own brand new memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel.
Why James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time Still Matters
For James Baldwin (1924-1987), the fundamental premises of American society needed revisiting. How we might view #BlackLivesMatter through his lens.
El Día de los Muertos in Poetry and Word
Celebrate El Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, through the rich literary traditions of our JSTOR poets and writers.
Ten Poems By Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, and became in her short life one of the most influential poets of the era.