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Dr. Strangelove was written and produced at the height of the Cold War, amidst such escalations as the Berlin Crisis (the closing of the border between Soviet East Berlin and democratic West Berlin) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (the establishment...

In retrospect, the most daring film released in 1968 was not Rosemary’s Baby or Night of the Living Dead or even 2001: A Space Odyssey. The major theatrical release that most bucked the conventions of the year 1968 almost certainly has to be...

Though an author of myriad books and plays, William Goldman is perhaps best known for his tale-within-a-tale of love and loss, capture and rescue, action and adventure. The 1973 fantasy romance novel The Princess Bride was a smashing success when...

Hiroshima is a non-fiction book written by John Hersey and published by The New Yorker on August 31 in 1946, a year after the atomic bomb was dropped by the American Army in Hiroshima, Japan during World War II.

Hersey visited Japan from 1945-1946...

Originally, Ellen Raskin, the author of The Westing Game, entered college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the intention of majoring in journalism; however, after visiting the Chicago Art Institute and viewing an exhibition of...

The Silver Sword is a children's novel published in 1956 by British author Ian Serraillier. It is widely considered to be a classic of children’s literature.

Serraillier began the work in 1949, five years after World War II's end, and took five...

Weber’s text was first written in 1904 as a series of essays. It evolved into a more cohesive work over time, as Weber incorporated responses to criticism and reworked some of his ideas. The text centers itself on a discussion of the 16th century...

The Conversation is one of Francis Ford Coppola's lesser known films, but it is also considered one of his best. Released in 1974, during the middle of the Watergate scandal, its artful depiction of paranoia and fear in the face of improved...

"Desiree's Baby" is the most famous of Kate Chopin's many short stories. It is set before the American Civil War on two plantations in Louisiana: that of the Valmondés and of the Aubignys. The story is about a baby and racial tension between a...

Pretty Woman is considered one of the most iconic American romantic comedies. It is interpreted by many as a modern American retelling of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, in which a rich and successful benefactor plucks a naive girl from the wrong...

The Outsiders was filmed in 1983 and was helmed by the acclaimed film director Francis Ford Coppola. Despite a cast made up of up-and-coming young screen stars such as Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and others, and the direction of...

Milos Forman is a Czech film director born on February 18, 1932 in Caslav, Czechoslovakia. As a child, both of his parents died in concentration camps and he lived with distant relatives for the duration of World War II. After graduating from King...

Originally published in Harper’s Bazaar in July 1926, the first of what would become a seemingly endless series of republications in anthologies and textbooks commenced the very next year when D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner” appeared in...

Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera almost certainly qualifies as a candidate for the title of the least-read novel whose story is best-known. Thanks to a never-ending supply of adaptations into other media, it would be almost impossible to...

The Talented Mr. Ripley, released in 1999, is a unique and innovative psychological thriller and drama. The film was directed and written by Anthony Minghella, a screenwriter, playwright and director. Previous to Ripley, Minghella directed ...

Homegoing is the first novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi. Following the descendants of an Asante woman named Maame, the novel paints a complex picture of the intertwined histories of Ghana and the United States from the 1700's to present...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) combines the personal and professional experiences of Ken Kesey and reflects the culture in which it was written, yet it stands strong on its own merits. Kesey developed the novel while a graduate student in...

Green Grass, Running Water is Thomas King's second novel. King began writing it in 1989 during a one-month writer's residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. The novel was published in 1993 and received positive critical reception. It was...

The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's book written in 1961 by Norton Juster, an architect with a passion for planning, order, and, especially, maps. Basing the main character, Milo, on himself, Juster created an adventure story filled with...

Directed by relative newcomer Barry Jenkins, Moonlight is a film adapted from Terell Alvin McCraney’s play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. Production on the film, financed by A24, PASTEL, and Plan B, began in late 2015; the film was released...

Anton Chekhov devoted several of his stories to the lives of ordinary people; in some famous cases, he focused specifically on unknown, obscure, and miserable individuals. One such poignant work is "Vanka," the story of a lonely peasant boy who...

Harriet The Spy is a children's novel written and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh. Published in 1964, it was an immediate hit and has been called a classic, appearing on three national lists of the best children's novels of all time.

The novel...

The Homecoming is one of Nobel laureate Harold Pinter’s most compelling and critically acclaimed plays. Disturbing, enigmatic, and darkly comic, it has been staged continually since its 1965 debut. Pinter’s own words in 1970 when accepting the...

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is a vastly influential Modernist poem by Wallace Stevens. It was first printed in October 1917 in Others: An Anthology of the New Verse, and then in Stevens' groundbreaking first book, Harmonium. The poem...