There is something unique about genre fiction. Perhaps it is the notion that great fiction should offer an escape. Perhaps it is with only these types of stories that true escapism can be attained some small path to temporary nirvana not found in other genres. That’s what we like to […]
Sometimes, it isn’t all that difficult to sort out what will happen in a novel. It does, of course, depend solely on “who” you’re reading and, perhaps, your personal ability to pick up hints, to notice what has been foreshadowed. But sometimes, when the plot is thick and the author […]
It’s happened to you before. You’re invested in a great book, in the flux and flow of a twisting plot, of multidimensional characters that make you mad, make you cry, maybe even make you scream out loud. Then, after all the hours you’ve invested in the book, all the possibilities, […]
Sometimes, when we love a great book, we feel the smallest bit of dissatisfaction at the idea that one, perhaps two books, will be all we get. It kind of bums us out. We know we can always go back and reread, but it’s the lingering ideas of what would […]
Sometimes the truest friends aren’t those sitting next to you in class or skipping rocks with you down at the river. For many readers, their very best friends have lived in the imagination, on the banks of Prince Edward Island, in the mystical dimensions of time and space and yes, […]
There’s something about settings of the past that just grabs us. We love the escapist notion of absolutely disappearing into a world unfamiliar and uncertain to us. Historical fiction does that and sometimes, when we are so lost in the mines of the mountains, in the exotic tragedies of 16th […]
Some authors love to pull whammies on us. Sometimes, there’s nothing better than an evil plot twist, because, well, who doesn’t love a good surprise? They make us think, have us scrambling back through the pages trying to see how we missed the foreshadowing that led us to the endings […]
There’s nothing quite like a great scare. Whether it’s the anticipation of monsters under your bed or the freaky feeling of shadowy figures hiding just around a darkened corner, being scared is certainly an adrenaline rush we enjoy. What intensifies the thrill of a great scare for us is […]
This week, we’ve got a lot on our minds. From stories that stuck with us, to the frustration and exhilaration of the writing (and publishing) process, this week’s picks are as varied and unique as the writers who penned them. We hope you enjoy. Have a great week, LitStackers.
Labor Day usually marks the end of summer and the return to bells, books and professions that Algebra will never, ever be used in life! It’s back to school time for most of the country and when we think about our time in school, particularly in those formative years when […]
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.