German philosopher Georg Hegel thought that poetry was art’s “highest phase,” just one tick above music. Despite (and partly because of) this and other lofty assertions, many people consider poetry inaccessible, insular, and the last thing on their mind when they think of entertainment. And you can’t really blame them. Many poets write with other [...]
As Mortimer J. Adler wrote in the preface of the 1972 version of his classic How to Read a Book, “the educators of the country have acknowledged that teaching the young to read, in the most elementary sense of that word, is our paramount educational problem.” It’s been 40 years since that revised guide was published, [...]
Most authors aren’t good at reading their own books. This maxim, delivered so astutely and simply (and hilariously) by Adam Gopnik during his delightful appearance Thursday at megafest Miami Book Fair International, really can’t be stressed enough. Gopnik is probably an exception, judging from his storytelling — though I can’t be sure since he didn’t [...]
Christopher Beha’s debut novel What Happened to Sophie Wilder has received rave reviews from publications ranging from New York Times Book Review to Vogue. In this meditative story, Beha, who is an associate editor at Harper’s and previously published the memoir The Whole Five Feet, brings us Charlie Blakeman, a floundering writer living with his [...]
While everyone loves a good mystery, it’s a genre overrun with writers, which makes it hard to decide who’s worth your time. To assist you, we’ve compiled a list of five mystery writers, both debut and established, who are participating in the Miami Book Fair this weekend and worth checking out. No matter what you’re [...]
Bestselling author and Floridian William Heffernan will not be deterred. Hurricane Sandy hit the New York metro area while he was promoting his latest book. On top of that, his flight back to Florida was delayed, wasting valuable time he had intended to volunteer to the Obama campaign. (Tuesday’s victory must have been a bright [...]
Natural disasters have a way of changing people’s outlook, at least temporarily. As we see the wreckage left by Hurricane Sandy, we face a stark reality: people lost their lives, homes were destroyed, cities and towns throughout the Atlantic corridor crashed to a halt and are only inching back to normalcy. It’s also a time [...]
Wyclef Jean can be a frustrating read. He whines a lot. (It’s not fair that everyone says Lauryn Hill was the real talent in the Fugees! He has more hits!); he can be somewhat duplicitous toward his loved ones. (He tried to run for president of Haiti against both his uncle and an old friend [...]
I was 18 years old when I first saw Trainspotting, the film based on Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel of the same name. At that point in my life I was utterly clueless about the world of heroin addiction in Edinburgh, Scotland, and any interest I had was lost in the struggle to understand what the characters in [...]
You already know this: while earning your college degree was informative and pleasant enough, plenty of us head in a different direction. Or maybe the experience wasn’t so awesome or helpful, but we’re sticking, steadfast and stubborn, to what we set out for in the first place. Joshua Miller, the executive director and founder of [...]
Venezuela has been in the media lately: following the death of Hugo Chávez, his chosen successor, Nicolas Maduro, beat challenger Henrique Capriles in the current election for presidency. It was a miniscule margin of a win—about 50.7%–and as of this write-up, a contested verdict. But if you’re the average United Statesian, you are less aware [...]
