Ralph Ellison and Kenneth Burke on Race, Writing, and Friendship
Ralph Ellison and Kenneth Burke were friends for more than 50 years and Bryan Crable chronicles the complex history of their friendship.
The Best Books for Teaching and Learning
The best books for teaching and learning include insights on neuroscience, biology, philosophy, psychology, and communication theory.
How Time and Space Converge to Evoke Walter Benjamin’s Aura
“The concept of aura which was proposed above with reference to historical objects may usefully be illustrated with reference to the aura of natural ones. We define aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes […]
Haruki Murakami and Raymond Carver: Literary Comrades
“Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.” Raymond Carver Raymond Carver (1938-1988) is an American author from Washington state; he is a master of the short fiction genre. His subtle use […]
Amor Towles on Mastering Your Circumstances in A Gentleman in Moscow
The American novelist, Amor Towles, wrote A Gentleman in Moscow, a remarkable story that centers on the Count, an aristocrat confined to a luxurious hotel during the tumultuous political climate in Russia in 1922.
The Fatal Flaw in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
The Fatal Flaw in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History Aristotle coined the term Hamartia which literally translates “to miss the mark” or “to err”. We’ve come to understand this term as the fatal flaw and find it in most tragedies, especially Greek tragedies. Basically, there is a reversal of fortunes that needs to take place in the plot. It’s […]
How to Talk About the Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Winter Book Club is almost over! As you probably know, this online version of book club mirrors the in-person get together we have every season. Real friends in real life get together to talk about a book. It’s incredible and I look forward to this night for months. Earlier this season was our in-person book […]
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting | Go Beyond Laughter
Beyond Laughter in Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Today we explore what it means to “go beyond laughter” as Kundera writes in the last section of the book. Warning: we ask more questions than we answer. The narrative called Border might be the most intriguing part of the book, which might be […]
Reclaim Conversation With Books in Your 21st Century Friendships
A few years ago, I read a book called Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle. I teach an excerpt from this book in my English Composition course during our visual rhetoric unit. Students tend to identify with the truths Turkle articulates in this text. Some […]
10 Books I Can’t Wait to Get My Eyes on in 2017
10 Books I Can’t Wait to Get My Eyes on in 2017 “And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke By Jessica S. Manuel As if the new year isn’t exciting enough, we have 10 incredible new reads on the horizon to build anticipation all year […]
One Sentence Reviews of the Best Reads of 2016
This year was full of half-read books, tons of audiobooks, and plenty of research. Out of the books I read and finished, these are the ones that made the cut. Below is this year’s list of one sentence reviews of the best reads of 2016. Check out previous years here: 2014 Winners 2015 Winners Professional […]
Winter Book Club 2017 Announced
Winter Book Club is here! We are excited to read our next book club pick with you that is sure to keep us warm over the next few months. As you probably know, we choose books we think you’ll enjoy AND that we’ve never read. Last year I wandered the streets of Prague and thought […]
3 Books to Prepare Your Heart for Christmas
3 Books to Prepare Your Heart for Christmas Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.” ~Winston Churchill By Jessica S. Manuel Pinterest has a wide selection of Scripture Reading Plans for Advent. We found one that we are reading through as a family, but I have also found it helpful to […]
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read
How many books have you lied about reading? When I first encountered this question in a Buzzfeed post, I sat back in my chair and gave the question serious consideration. I haven’t exactly lied about reading books, but I do talk about books I haven’t read in my classroom. Is that the same thing? This […]
Free Haruki Murakami Short Stories, Essays, Interviews, Speeches
Keywords Free Haruki Murakami Short Stories, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Men Without Women, The Elephant Vanishes, After the Quake I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of […]