A show of hands: who had to read The Great Gatsby in school? Most of us, right? You’re probably overly familiar with the tale of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, if not from high school English class then from the Baz Luhrman spectacle in theaters this past summer. I hope you still have room in […]
Walking into a bookstore can be overwhelming. And heaven forfend you go onto Amazon! There are so many books out there that it makes you wonder why they’re always saying the publishing industry is in its death throes. If you know you’re looking for a copy of The Hunger Games, then you’re golden, but lots […]
If you read Piper Kerman’s memoir Orange Is The New Black or binge-watched the Netflix adaptation (and who hasn’t done that?), chances are you have wondered about the real-life woman behind Nora (in the book) and Alex Vause (the character in the show). For the first time ever, 51-year-old novelist and PhD student Catherine Cleary […]
There’s nothing like a crossword puzzle to make you feel ever-so-slightly inadequate. Why can’t you recall — seven words down — the instrument used to kill Leon Trotsky? Why don’t you know — five words across — the most famous opera by Jules Massenet? Go watch some more “Jersey Shore,” you fool … or pick […]
“You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, […]
It’s too cute, I can’t handle it: the Animal Rescue League of Berks County, Pennsylvania, invites children in from first through eighth grade to visit the shelter and read to the rescue cats who live there. The kids get to practice their reading skills, while the cats feel a sense of comfort from the rhythmic […]
