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Nnedi Okorafor had never intended to become a writer; a talented track runner in her teens, Okorafor was a nationally-ranked athlete, and also excelled academically with a particular interest in the sciences. Her plan was to attend college on a...

That Hideous Strength is the third novel in what is known as C.S. Lewis's "Space Trilogy" (the first two being Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, respectively). These works of science fiction are notably out of keeping with the rest of...

Perelandra is the second novel in what is known as C.S. Lewis's "Space Trilogy" (the first being Out of the Silent Planet, and the conclusion being That Hideous Strength). These works of science fiction are notably out of keeping with the rest of...

G.K. Chesterton was a devout man who wrote Christian apologetics profusely; he converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism when he began to feel that the Anglican church was losing sight of its orthodoxy and relaxing its principles too much. The...

A devout Catholic, Chesterton was, by his own admission, irritated by critics who objected to his Christian apologetics writings. Chesterton wrote a great deal in defense of Christianity, the most well-known of these writings being Heretics. When...

Marcus Cicero wrote De Officiis (also known as On Obligations) in less than four weeks, in the Fall of 44 BC. It is a long that details Cicero's idea of the best way to live. The treatise is split into three separate books. Book One deals with...

The Leopard is a book written by the Italian author and social critic Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. The book, which is a chronicle of Italian history, was published in 1958 by Feltrinelli after many query-rejections. It spans over 330 pages...

John G. Avildsen's classic Rocky (1976) has inspired countless sequels and prequels and is responsible for one of the most famous sequences in cinematic history (the montage of Rocky training in Philadelphia). The film follows the eponymous Rocky...

Plutarch's Parallel Lives (first printed in Rome in 1470) is a work of tremendous quality and equally great historical importance. Although it is a very complex book, it can be easily described as a series of biographies of famous people (like...

Adapted from the James Baldwin novel of the same name, If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) is writer-director Barry Jenkins follow-up to the Academy Award-winning film Moonlight (2016). Set against the backdrop of early 1970's Harlem, New York, ...

Hamlet is director-writer-actor Kenneth Branagh's adaption of William Shakespeare's famed play of the same name. Branagh is perhaps best-known for his Shakespeare adaptions, so his involvement in the adaption of Hamlet is no surprise. Branagh's...

Born in November 1921, author Yoshiko Uchida certainly had an interesting life. During her senior year at U.C. Berkeley, Uchida was informed that she and her family -- as well as all of the Japanese Americans in the United States -- would be...

Everyman is a retrospective reflective novel about “everyman”. It is written by Philip Roth and was published in 2006 by Hougton Mifflin at 182 pages. There is an audiobook read by George Guidall which was published shortly after the written...

Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (released in 1994) is an undoubtedly interesting film. It was now-famous director Quentin Tarantino that came up with the story for the film, which revolves around two people who suffered through bad and...

Although written as a novel, The Moon Is Down was originally intended to be a play, and was written in such a way that it was easily adapted for the stage. Written in 1942, the novel is set in an unspecified small country in Northern Europe that...

Veronica Roth's novel Divergent was adapted for the big screen in 2014. It is a dystopian science fiction film on one hand but is also an action thriller, too. It is the first in the Divergent Series and is sent in a post-apocalyptic Chicago,...

Based on Dracula by Bram Stoker and the film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) follows Count Dracula as he moves from Transylvania to Wismar. On his journey, Dracula spreads the Black Plague across...

In all of the books you have read about the devil, you have probably never imagined him to be gainfully employed as a professor, engaged in debate with a monk called Michael or spending his down time philosophizing about rationalism, religion and...

Family is the story of slavery as told through the eyes and experiences of one family i particular. Clora is a slave; the story tells how her blood runs from its African roots all the way around the world and mixing with other races, classes and...

The Book of Mrs Noah is a novel by French-English author Michele Roberts. It is the story of a woman who visits Venice and begins to imagine that she is Noah's wife. The trip becomes less of a vacation and more of a journey of self-exploration and...

Steve Kowit was born June 30, 1938, in Brooklyn, New York. Kowit is best known for his lively poetry. On his website, he jokes about the boredom of poetry readings and claims that his are "lively, entertaining, and passionate".

Over the course of...

The phrase "los vendidos" has two meanings when translated into English; "the sold ones", and "the sellouts". Neither translation speaks highly of the central characters in this one-act play by Chicano playwright Luis Valdez; the play takes a...

Much like many of von Trier's films, Melancholia (2011) is an exceedingly bizarre and unique film. The film follows two sisters (played by Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, respectively) who have a strained relationship. However, once...

Reading Teju Cole's debut novel Open City is really not like reading a novel at all; it is more like reading a journal or a travelogue written for the writer to look back on themselves and use as an aide memoir when wanting to go back over a trip...