Prophus

The World According to Tao (and Wesley Chu)

In traditional Chinese philosophy, the Tao is the intuitive knowing of “life” that cannot be grasped full-heartedly as just a concept but is known nonetheless through actual living experience of one’s everyday being.* That’s not the Tao I’m talking about. Not really. The Tao I’m referring to is […]

LitStack’s ‘In Case You Missed It’ Review: The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

The Lives of Tao Wesley Chu Angry Robot Release Date: April 30, 2013 ISBN 978-0-85766-329-0 Ok, raise your hand if you’ve ever wondered, or ever suspected, or even mused that perhaps throughout our history, humanity has been influenced by beings outside our gene pool. Admit it, you have, right? Maybe […]

Birthdays

On this day, June 16, in 1938, Joyce Carol Oates was born in Lockport, New York. The first of her family to graduate high school, she became an avid reader early and began writing at age 14. She won a short story contest at 19 and published her first work, the short-story collection By the North Gate, shortly after earning her master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since then she has published over 40 novels (including National Book Award-winners) as well as plays, novellas, short stories, poetry, and works of nonfiction. Just this year, she has published two more volumes of short stories (last year she published her 59 th novel, Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.) Today she turns 83.

Birthdays

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.