Mark Z. Danielewski

The Books That Scare the Crap Out of Us

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 when it comes from our [….]

LitStack Pick: The Lines We Wish We’d Written

I have a favorite line, several in fact, that have become a part of my subconscious. Sometimes, I spit them out as advice, so often, in fact, that I forget where I read them. 124 was spiteful. That’s a favorite and it’s Toni Morrison. Like Stephen King, mentioned below, Morrison’s succulent opening line is a [….]

Birthdays

On this day, September 18, in 1709, Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England. A supremely literate man, he was a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, who in 1755 published A Dictionary of the English Language (which he wrote himself, a task that took 9 years); it was the pre-eminent English dictionary until the Oxford English Dictionary was published 173 years later. He was also well known for an influential annotated edition of William Shakespeare’s plays, as well as many other works. “Dr. Johnson” died in London in 1784; he was 75.

Subscribe to LitStack via Email