Chicago has great actors. This truism means that even the most negative review generally contains some version of ". . . but the acting is great," wh...
What does it take to become Traviata, one of opera's most famous heroines? A lot of rehearsals. A French documentary shows the making of Traviata at t...
Among literature's most popular plot devices are the obstructions authors put on the road of love. It's hard not to get engrossed when two characters are thwarted from finding happiness with each other.
If you can't judge a book by its cover, can you judge a book by its title? I ask that because there are some novels with a title character who is not the most prominent or interesting person in the book.
Readers can love a novel or short story for many reasons -- including expert prose, a compelling plot, and well-drawn characters. There's also the appeal of what might be called the "recognition apparition."
Literature fans love "encounters" with living or dead authors. These might involve seeing novelists at book signings, listening to them give a talk, or visiting homes/museums connected with famous authors of the past.
The 1800s were of course a time of blatant racism, and many authors reflected that by depicting fictional characters of color in horribly stereotyped ways. Or they omitted those characters entirely, as if the world was populated by whites only.
The 3D steampunk version of The Three Musketeers is opening October 21, with Orlando Bloom and Matthew Macfadyen. It looks wild and wonderful and may...
Reading a beloved book twice, thrice, or more is a craving that can't be denied. It's pleasurable, comforting, and relaxing -- partly because you don't have to figure out what the author is doing from scratch.
My list includes the authors' names, the number of novels I've read by each of them, and my three favorite novels (in rank order) by each of them. If you have different favorites by those authors, I'd like to hear about that.
The Bronte sisters weren't alone in blood being as thick as ink.
They were unplanned "Five-Year Plans" for the ages: the amazing proliferation of classic novels published from 1846 to 1851 and from 1922 to 1927. And, believe it or not, one author had a book in both those periods!
For me, reading a book series after all the installments have been written is as satisfying as watching a great Quidditch match. Well, almost.
Curiosity about great novelists has inspired me to read dozens of author biographies. In those books (and on the Web), one can discover many "wow"-inducing facts about renowned writers
There are plenty of cases where an author's masterpiece deserves the top billing it gets in the author's canon. But then there are the cases where a writer's most famous book is not the writer's best book.
It goes without saying that the most snafu-riddled trips can be the most memorable ones. Actually, I just said it, but it's true.
Writing a book is usually a long, hair-pulling affair for the author. But in the end, only one name appears on the front of the book: their own. What...
Twitter was all atwitter about a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece which argued that the increasingly difficult economics of the publishing business will soon lead to advertising in ebooks.
Should the media industry take responsibility for its formations of mixed race subjects, forging of interracial relations, and imagining "ambiguous" identification in today's increasingly diversifying world?
Imagine the parties with aristocratic ladies dressed in their own versions of the little black dress over the centuries.
