Highly controversial in its time, Blasted is British author Sarah Kane's first play. It premiered in London at the Royal Court Theatre. It has many shocking and rather gruesome elements, including rape, cannibalism, and suicide, elements which...

Archie Weller did not take a traditional route to the top of the literary tree in his native Australia, although since modern Australia is a country that was created to house criminals transported from Britain, it is actually quite fitting. After...

Although Mick Jackson's Denial (2016) was a critical success, it was a massive box office bomb. It took only $8 million against a budget of $10 million dollars. Typically, films must make two to three times their budget in order to make a profit...

Simple Recipes is a book containing eight short stories centered around different families in different circumstances. It is written by Chinese American novelist Madeleine Thien, first published in 2001 and then later republished in 2002 by...

A.M. Klein certainly had an interesting life. Born in February 1909, Klein was a poet, journalist, novelist, short story writer and lawyer. However, he is best-known for his poetry. Some of his most-famous poems include: "Out of the Pulver and the...

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...

Kitchen is the novel that truly made Banana Yoshimoto, considered one of Japan’s most esteemed contemporary writers, famous and earned her the acclamation of critics and the public alike. Published in 1987, it rapidly became a bestseller; to date,...

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 Government Inspector is one of the most famous Russian plays, renowned for its satirical portrayal of government officials and laced with apocalyptic, absurd overtones. Vladimir Nabokov praised the play, stating “The play begins with a...

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...

The Hairy Ape tells the story of the fall of Yank, a proud and powerful stoker working aboard a steamship. Though respected by his fellow workers, a chance encounter with a millionaire's daughter who disdains him as an "ape" leads to a vain quest...

Usually, love is part of everyday life, a matter of routine devotion and simple joys. But occasionally, love can hit like a storm, ripping you away from the ordinary passage of time, and from yourself. Sappho's "Fragment 31" speaks of this...