Dorothy Parker was a prolific Jazz Age writer who rose to prominence during her days as a member of the Algonquin Round Table – a group of writers, critics...

William Shakespeare’s reputation is basically secure at this point. He was hugely influential, his works are widely studied, and although he’s over 400 years old he remains a part...

Lois Lowry’sThe Giverimagines a world without color, without hills, without difference and most importantly without memory.Winner of the 1994 Newberry Award,The Givershares thematic DNA with classic “Kid Who Is...

In honor of Children’s Book Week, we each decided to read a Dr. Seuss book for this episode—that’s right, Andrew had somehow managed to avoid the Lorax, and Craig...

What if superheroes were real? Would we still revere them so much? Or would they be too frightening for us to handle, too unstable for us to control? What...

Mark Twain is an incredibly prolific, incredibly distinctive author. This week’s read is just a short story and it’s one of Twain’s first major successes, but it manages to...

Justin Cronin got his start publishing quiet but moving “literary” fiction. In 2010, he blew up North America (in a manner of speaking) with his post-apocalyptic don’t-call-them-vampires “genre” novelThe...

Tell the Wolves I’m Home, author Carol Rifka Brunt’s first novel, is multi-faceted: it’s about different kinds of love. It’s about siblinghood, and growing up. It’s about the early...

Molière’sThe Misanthropeis a three-and-a-half centuries old play about something as old as time: dishing on your people behind their back. It’s also full of great zingers about man’s duplicitous...