Literature

A Few Resonant Songs by Joni Mitchell

Today, November 7, 2024, Roberta Joan Mitchell (née Anderson) turns eighty-one years old. As we seem to be in something of a Joni Mitchell renaissance…

Nov 7, 2024 •

Get Down, America! It’s Howard the Duck for President!

In 1976, despite the bicentennial celebrations commemorating America’s independence two hundred years earlier, the country was disheartened. The economy…

Oct 25, 2024 •

The Book of Lost Tales, Vols. I & II by J.R.R. Tolkien: The First Draft of Middle-Earth

Most readers’ introduction to John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s writings about Middle-Earth [the name of which is itself a literal English translation of Old…

Sep 27, 2024 •

Treasure Island (1950): Disney Goes Live-Action and Newton Discovers the Pirate Accent

Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is likely the most influential work of pirate fiction. It was originally serialized in the…

Sep 19, 2024 •

The Graduate (1967): A Picture-Perfect Portrait of Alienation

In 1963, recent Williams College graduate Charles Webb published a slim novella, the cover of which declared it to be “A novel of today’s youth, unlike…

Jun 28, 2024 •

Poetry in an off key (for Mother's Day?)

May 12, 2024 •

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