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“The Altar” is a pattern poem, also known as a “hieroglyphic” poem. These are poems shaped like the thing they describe: in this case, an altar. The first known pattern poems were written in Ancient Greek between 325 BCE and 200 CE. While other...

Published in 2003, Private Peaceful is a young-adult novel by English author Michael Morpurgo, notable for his children's book War Horse. The book is written from the perspective of a soldier discussing his life experiences both before and during...

Not to be confused with the Laurel and Hardy movie of the same name that was released six years previously, Leo McCarey's Duck Soup was the last of five Marx Brothers movies to be released by Paramount Studios. It also marked the ending of the...

The Accidental Tourist is a novel written by the American author Anne Tyler in 1985. The novel revolves around a protagonist named Macon Leary, a middle-aged writer of travel guides. Macon and his wife of 20 years, Sarah, struggle to maintain...

The speed of Wendelin Van Draanen's prose is extremely quick, and mirrors the speed around the track of her protagonist, sixteen year old Jessica Carlisle, a high school track star who loses a leg when her track team's bus collides with a car...

"The Darling" is a short story by Anton Chekhov, written in December 1898. First published in The Family magazine, it was ultimately included in the nine volume of Chekhov's work, released by book publisher Adolph Marx. The story draws from...

In 1862, during his Presidency, Abraham Lincoln's beloved son, Willie, passed away, and was interred in the crypt at Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown area of Washington D.C. The President was consumed by grief, and had been known to go into the...

Michael Robartes and the Dancer is a book collection of 15 poems. The book and thus the poems were written between the years 1914 and 1919, before it was published in 1920. Later on, the book has been republished various times, including the...

This Coen Brothers movie, released in 2000, takes its title from a film made six decades earlier. In the 1941 Preston Sturges comedy Sullivan’s Travels, the title journey is undertaken by a popular director of comedy movies who has decided he...

Juno was a groundbreaking film at the time of its release in 2007 for many reasons. Its frank and un-precious depiction of teen pregnancy was witty and crowd-pleasing; the screenplay, by newcomer Diablo Cody was laugh-a-minute while also...

Published in 1972, Gorilla, My Love is Toni Cade Bambara's first book-length work of fiction. However, she had been publishing short fiction in periodicals for some time. "Sweet Home" (which appears in Gorilla, My Love under the title "Sweet...

In 1946, a former tail gunner during World War II was elected to represent Wisconsin in the United States Senate. His methods would become infamous in American history, known today as "McCarthyism." In a strikingly short period of time. Sen....

The novel is set during a tumultuous time in French history, when the country was in the throws of short-lived regimes and a series of revolutions. It is also during the height of the Industrial Revolution, which began in France later than it did...

Although the five books of Gargantua and Pantragruel are often presented chronologically, François Rabelais actually wrote the second book first, which is the story of Pantagruel. Research by Donald M. Frame indicates that Rabelais wrote his story...

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. It is the story of nine-year-old Oskar Schell, an imaginative but troubled boy who lost his father in the attacks of 09/11. The story follows Oskar's attempt to make peace...

Everything is Illuminated is Jonathan Safran Foer's first novel. Foer completed a full manuscript of the book while an undergraduate at Princeton under the mentorship of Joyce Carol Oates. Only the core of the novel is based in fact. When he was...

Enrique’s Journey first appeared in 2002 in the Los Angeles Times, as a series of six articles written by Sonia Nazario, with accompanying photographs by Don Bartletti. Both author and photographer were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their work....

Ender's Game began as a short story that Orson Scott Card wrote because his repertory theater company was collecting debts and had to be shut down. "Ender's Game" first appeared in Analog, a leading science fiction magazine, in August 1977. Card...

Confessions was written partly in response to individuals who had taken an unhealthy and prurient interest in the Bishop of Hippo's early life. His less-than-model youth and young adulthood provided gossip and scandal for the more puritanical...

Widely considered one of the greatest war films of all time, Dunkirk is a 2017 movie directed, co-produced, and written by Christopher Nolan. Nolan's tenth film, Dunkirk takes a highly specific perspective on a definitive moment in British...

Clueless is a coming-of-age teen film loosely based on Jane Austen's classic novel Emma written and directed by Amy Heckerling. It stars Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy, Stacey Dash, and Breckin Meyer. The film is set in Beverly...

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was first published in 1968. The novel tells the story of Rick Deckard and his quest to "retire" six Nexus-6 androids, the most advanced type, in 24 hours. The novel follows Deckard and a secondary character -...

Divergent is the first novel in Veronica Roth's debut trilogy of the same name, followed by Insurgent and Allegiant. Since its publication in April 2011, it has won numerous awards, including Favorite Book of 2011 in the 2011 Goodreads Choice...

In 1957, the year that his signature book, On the Road, was first printed, Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac began work on what was to become his third published work, The Dharma Bums. It was written with legendary haste in only ten writing...