Boy, Snow, Bird Helen Oyeyemi Riverhead Books Release Date: March 6, 2014 ISBN 978-1-59463-139-9 They’re names. In case you’ve looked at the title of Helen Oyeyemi’s newest novel and wondered what the heck those three words might have in common, they are proper names of three of the main characters. […]
Six-Gun Snow White Catherynne M. Valente Subterranean Press First Edition: February 28, 2013 ISBN 978-1-59606-552-9 The Brothers Grimm never saw this one coming. Author Catherynne M. Valente has taken the age old fairy tale of Snow White, infused it with images and archetypes of the Old West and threaded it […]
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.