Kealan Patrick Burke

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LitStack’s All Hallow’s Reads Recommendations

Published on : 30 October, 201329 October, 2013 Published by : LitStackEditor

It’s that time of year again! The week of Halloween marks (what we like to think of) as the beginning of the giving season, especially where books are concerned. Started in 2010, by Neil Gaiman All Hallow’s Reads “is a Hallowe’en tradition. It’s simply that in the week of Hallowe’en, or on […]

On this day, May 17, in 1939, Gary Paulsen was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The author of numerous YA coming of age/wilderness tales (Hatchet, Escape from Fire Mountain, Dogsong) didn’t meet his own father, a career military officer, until he and his mother moved to the Philippines when he was seven years old (they returned to the US two years later). At 14 he ran away to join the carnival to escape his alcoholic parents; he struggled himself with alcoholism but simplified his life to keep his demons at bay. In 1983, at age 44, he and his team of dogs ran the 1,150 mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska which he wrote about in the gripping Winterdance; he later had to abandon the sport due to heart issues. Today, he turns 82.

On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.

LitStack’s All Hallow’s Reads Recommendations

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