Category: Literature

Recommended Reading: Epoch Booklist

This week, we suggest books on the state of journalism and identity politics in the United States, as well as classics about love and redemption. Nonfiction American Journalism Gone Woke “Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy” By Batya Ungar-Sargon Many books have been written about the failed state of journalism but Ungar-Sargon broaches…


Book Review: ‘The Viking Heart: How Scandinavians Conquered the World”

The Vikings were a warring people steeped in mythology and legend stemming from the very wars and battles they fought. Known for their brutal savagery from factual and fictionalized retellings, the Viking rule remains one of the most captivating eras of world history. In Arthur Herman’s new book, “The Viking Heart: How Scandinavians Conquered the…


A Literary Thanksgiving: 3 Stories, 3 Children’s Books, and a Compendium

Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” Robert May’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which later became a song most of us recognize, and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” by Dr. Seuss—these and other stories are now classics of the Christmas season. As for Thanksgiving, well, that beloved holiday definitely plays…


What Good Is Poetry? The Deliverance of John Donne’s ‘Death, Be Not Proud’

As autumn falls in the flashing splendor and fading light of a dying season, we are invited, with the inevitability of the seasons, to face an inevitable fact: We, too, must die. No matter how commonplace this truth, it is still brutal in its brevity. How one understands it, however, makes all the difference—and good…


What Good Is Poetry? The Noteworthy Nonsense of ‘Jabberwocky’

There exist some loose bits of lyrical nonsense so absurd that they become absolute. That is to say, there can be a foolishness so extreme that it crosses over the equator into the gravity of philosophers, giving sages the task of meditating on owls and pussycats, or poring over the prattlings of Mother Goose instead…


The Future Dreamed, the Past Imagined: Time Traveling and Literature

“I’m gonna build a time machine So I can go back and make the scene I’m gonna make some time with my Egyptian Queen In my little old time machine.” Those lyrics from the 1960 hit song “Time Machine,” performed by Dante & the Evergreens, are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it…


Epoch Booklist: Recommended Reading

This week, we suggest a bit of humor to brighten your days, and recommend a classic American play that will touch your heart. History A Forgotten History of America History of the United States By Noah Webster Written for students in 1838, this textbook by prolific author Noah Webster (of dictionary fame) is a fascinating…


‘Live Forever!’: A Look at Ray Bradbury

He wrote story after story about space travel, but he never got a driver’s license and didn’t drive a car. He lacked the money to go to college, but he possessed the will to get himself an education. As he later said, “I spent three days a week for ten years educating myself in the…


Book Review: ‘Astoria’ by Peter Stark

Most of us remember history lessons about the overland expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804–1806 to push beyond the Louisiana Purchase, discover a river route through the new lands, and reach the Pacific Coast. President Thomas Jefferson, a scholar and visionary, had read British writer Alexander Mackenzie’s urgings from 1801 to his fellow countrymen about…


Book Review: ‘Black Eye for America’: An Explanation of Critical Race Theory

At a time when Americans are hearing the term “critical race theory” tossed about, it behooves us to know exactly what it means. The excellent book “Black Eye for America: How Critical Race Theory Is Burning Down the House,” provides needed clarification. With a foreword by retired neurosurgeon and politician Benjamin S. Carson, co-authors Carol…