John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902. Like his literary contemporary, Ernest Hemingway, Steinbeck concentrated on writing about the familiar settings, characters, and complex situations that he had
Category: Literature
Was Travels with Charley THE Exclamation Mark of Steinbeck’s Writing?
John Steinbeck was 56 years old in 1962 when he first published Travel’s with Charley: In Search of America. As a contemporary of Hemingway, Steinbeck believed in the importance of experiencing
New Book Group Discussing Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
In early 2017, I will be Starting an In-Person and Online Book Discussion Group for Lovers of Classic 19th and 20th Century Literature. Our First In-Person Meetings will be held
The Paris Wife and A Moveable Feast: “There’s No One Thing That’s True…” Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway wrote, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays
Great Books Don’t Often Make Great Movies
Great books seldom have great movies complimenting them. A classic work of literature, with its interwoven themes, plots, and interactive dialogues, sustained over several hundred pages, is very challenging to
Madwomen in Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature
Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature has often used themes of women held back or locked up in rooms and attics while attempting to make valiant stands and statements in support of their
Scatchard and Nurse Ratched: What’s in a Name in Jane Eyre and Nineteenth-Century Literature?
Nineteenth-Century authors didn’t beat around the bush when naming characters or settings in their novels. Both the name and the character, Jane Eyre is as plain as vanilla, or Jane.
Jane Eyre’s Moral Compass
As I discussed in last week’s post, Jane Eyre’s character is largely a reflection of the life of the book’s author, Charlotte Bronte. Charlotte’s mother died when she was very
Charlotte Bronte’s Life Informs Jane Eyre
The best authors inform their works of fiction with details, memories, and remembered or imagined dialogue from the most vivid memories and impressions from their lives. Fiction allows writers
Reading Tom Sawyer as a Child and as an Adult
It has been almost 60 years since my fifth-grade teacher read Mark Twain’s, The Prince and the Pauper, and Tom Sawyer, to our class for the last 15 minutes
