Slade House

Litstack Recs: Vanity Fair & Slade House

Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray The early nineteenth century didn’t have reality television, but it did have William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair—and if you’re in need of a novel to escape into, this is the one. Vanity Fair is a classic of social-climbing, backbiting, profligate behavior, and true love. […]

LitStack Review: Slade House by David Mitchell

Slade House David Mitchell Random House Release Date: October 27, 2015 ISBN 978-0-8129-9868-9 David Mitchell is an amazing novelist (NPR reviewer Jason Sheehan calls his writing “beautifully twisty.” I like that.) With unique works such as Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks under his belt, the question is, what does […]

Birthdays

On this day, June 11, in 1572, Ben Jonson was born in Westminster, London, England. A towering figure in English (and therefore Western) literature, especially during the Renaissance and Restoration, he is considered second only to William Shakespeare (whom he knew) in his importance to British drama. Indeed, known for his intellect and cultured satire found in both his plays and his poetry, he was more widely known and better received than Shakespeare, and enjoyed the patronage of King James VI and I. The man who has been called the first poet laureate continued to write up until his death in 1637; he was 65.

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.