Happy last day of classes, dear readers! It’s been a whirlwind of a semester, and I hope you’ve found a calm solace in books to get you through it like I have. I was inspired this past week to revisit some of my favorite novels that feature exceptionally strong narrators. These books have narrators ...
I love books that are written so beautifully it's like they're straight out of a fantasy. Even mediocre story lines can be made enjoyable when the writing effortlessly flows from page to page. It is special to find books that engage readers with their characters through meticulously constructed ...
Any chronic bookworm will understand the feeling you experience when you’re out of new books to read. The craving for a new story is too much to bear for very long, so a trip to the bookstore is necessary. I go through books like there’s no tomorrow, so I’m shopping for new reads every few weeks. When you step into the store, you take in shelf after shelf stocked with unread stories, each one begging you to pick it up. But how do you find your next book? Fear not, dear readers, for I have a handy step-by-step guide just for you!
I’ve had a strange fascination with death for as long as I can remember. It was never tied with an obsession with heavy metal music or a desire to dress in all black, not that those tendencies always go hand in hand. It has seemed to stem from a more scientific standpoint, and my interests expanded ...
If you've been a reader of my column for a while now, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of out-of-the-ordinary and unconventional books. They’re an enjoyable break from cookie-cutter stories that can flood the bestseller lists, and the hackneyed tales some authors can churn out in just a few months. ...
Unfortunately, my dear readers, you won’t be hearing from your favorite literary columnist for a couple of weeks. We’re less than five days from spring break, something that -- for me at least -- doesn’t seem real. This semester has been crazy and disjointed, so it’ll be nice to relax and spend ...
The non-fiction essay is an oft-forgotten genre, one that doesn’t have its own section in a bookstore or a list of bestsellers. It doesn't fall directly in line with the short story or the biography, instead treading a grey area between fictional writing and personal memoirs. It isn’t a genre ...
As a voracious reader all throughout my childhood, I have encountered a huge variety of books over the years since I learned to read. Reading became less popular among my friends as I got older, but I always begged my parents to let me read any book I could get my hands on. Given the huge library of books I read in the first few years of my literary life, it should be hard to pick out favorite books and a favorite series. However, to this day, at the ripe stage of a college sophomore, I can look back on my childhood and easily pick out my favorites.
Short stories fall in a gray area between full-length novels and poetry, not quite long enough to consume a printed book all on its own in most cases, but not short enough to be limited to a few pages of text. It is easy to write pages and pages of words to convey an idea or message, but it takes masterful writers to compress their stories in such a way that they can be told in only a few dozen pages. The way short stories are written is tricky, as the author has to utilize carefully constructed sentences to imply storylines and details that aren’t explicitly written.
One of the best things about reading is the exposure to people you’d never meet in your lifetime. Literary characters are some of the most multi-faceted, interesting and inspiring people I’ve ever had the chance to meet. They make unwise decisions just as you and I do and, through them, experience ...
