To Read & To Write

For those true lovers of the literary fairy-tale, this publication, released in 2015 by Oxford University Press (so fairly new for a collection such as this), is a must-read. While we are very familiar with those fairy-tales considered classics, ranging from many countries in Europe, such as Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and Hansel & Gretel , the collection here is strategic in that all authors included are British, and moreover, these stories emerged during the Victorian Era. This may or may not surprise you, but England is not so famous for their fairy-stories, in so much as those writers like The Brothers Grimm ( Hansel & Gretel)  or Hans Christian Anderson (The Little Mermaid) , Charles Perrault (Cinderella) or Madame D'Aulnoy (Beauty and the Beast) . We don't really remember who exactly wrote The Three Bears , The Selfish Giant, and The Reluctant Dragon (all of which are included here) - and we don't really realize they are fairy-tales from the Victorian...

The best thing about Katarina Bivald’s “The Readers Of The Broken Wheel Recommend” (2015) is that it is a book about two book lovers who don’t even realize that they love the world and their community even more than they love the books themselves. Amy, a woman from rural Iowa, more specifically, a run-down impoverished town in middle America, and Sara, a sweet and shy girl from Sweden, actually never get to meet. Instead, they are pen pals, and when Sara finally reaches Broken Wheel, Iowa to meet her, Amy is dead.  But back to the previous point: what is it about books that makes them so special? It doesn’t matter what you read. Isn’t the answer that books provide a view into a world different than our own? Where we learn about people or persons that reflect us and our inner yearnings or else teach us why and how each individual inhabits this life in completely new and unexpected ways? “Readers Of The Broken Wheel Recommend” shows us how books somehow always had to begin wi...

"The Revenant: A Novel Of Revenge" tells the story of frontiersman Hugh Glass, a Western legend, who survived the wilderness on his own after he was brutally attacked by a grizzly bear and left for dead by The Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The year is 1823 and the frontier is abounding with Native American tribes, which, for the most part, doesn’t make Glass’s plight any easier, until one kind Sioux tends to his wounds and takes him in.  The author of this book, Michael Punke, writes with clarity and a knack for solid historical fiction, and spins a tale of survivalism driven by the need for retribution. Glass is not upset that his partners have left him – he was severely wounded and a burden; they had tried to carry him on a handmade stretcher over the treacherously cold and snowy landscape (not to mention covered with trees, shallow quarries, fords, mountainous terrain, and the like) for three days. Punke’s interpretation of Glass’s story describes a man driven by rage at...

Not many books are able to leave the reader with such powerful emotions as the novel “Girl In The Moonlight” by Charles Dubow. The feeling is almost even painful at times, and it is complex, just as much as the characters in the story are, as the story urges one to contemplate what has just been read months and months after, maybe without even realizing it. This is the mark of a great book. Moreover, a great piece of literature. Charles Dubow gives readers access to an unquestionably elusive and exclusive world of prestige and glamour, with all its idiosyncrasies, etiquettes, and privileges. Dubow portrays families that have a lot of money, and there is nothing sugarcoated about their lives; there is nothing that makes them any “richer” than the next man. The book is a pleasure to read because it presents a gateway into a social stratum by which only the few are a part. The book also allows the reader to take note of the best works of art by reminding us of such people as Rainer M...