"The Witches of Salem", Arthur Miller (1953) - allusions to McCarthyism
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Arthur Miller, in 1953, wrote 'The Crucible' which recounts the puritan trials and alludes to McCarthyism, by the same process that had been used by George Orwell with his 'Animal Farm'; denouncing a political issue by writing a similar story to avoid censorship. Raymond Rouleau...
The things they carried: Time O'Brien
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
This book is, debatably, a memoir of the Vietnam War. By debatably, I mean to say that it is written in the form of a memoir, although the author denies that many of these events actually took place. This book includes the stories of Tim O'Brien and the soldiers that he knew in Vietnam during the...
The House on Mango Street
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose this book because my aunt recommended me reading it. Although I don't usually read books like this, because it was a book about coming of age, I thought it would be interesting to read. This book was somewhat like The Catcher in the Rye, but instead of taking place in New York, it...
Daisy Miller: Henry James
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This book takes place in 1878 and centers around the idea of an extended trip throughout Europe, which was very popular among wealthy Americans at this time. This novel addresses the behavior of the young American girls who visit Europe and due to their new distance from home, become very...
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose to read the Picture of Dorian Gray because I was already semi familiar with the story and numerous friends recommended it to me. This famous novel takes place in nineteenth century England and revolves around the high society of that time and place. There is a supernatural aspect to this...
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This book was originally recommended to me by freshman humanities teacher. When I read the book previously, it helped me to make sense of my own beliefs and I recently came to a point in my life where I felt that it was time to read it again. This is really a story of philosophy and religion. It...
Psychological analysis in the Heart of Darkness
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Orphaned at the age of twelve, Conrad's writing reflects solidarity. In his most popular novel Heart of Darkness he states, “We live, as we dream- alone.” Common themes in his works are alienation, confusion, and doubt. He wrote not only about physical threats but also about inner...
Book review: A Darkness more than Night by Michael Connelly
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Michael Connelly is 54 years old and is a well-known writer from Los Angeles. He has spent his life writing detective stories in which he mostly uses Harry Bosch as the main character. Connelly has won lots of awards during is career. Terry McCaleb is happy living with his family, when FBI...
David J. Francis, Uniting Africa: Building regional peace and security systems
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
“Africa today is faced with a stark choice, either unite or perish. ” So opens David J. Francis' intriguing study on the state of African nations in relation to one another. Frances spends a great deal of attention outlining the serious social and economic problems facing the African...
A special education, learning to teach a disabled student
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
A Special Education: One Family's Journey Through the Maze of Learning Disabilities is the author, Dana Buchman's explanation about how her family coped with having a child who suffered from severe learning and developmental disorders. It is a tremendously interesting look at the topic because...
Familial construction in Christopher Carrington's 'There's no place like home'
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
In Christopher Carrington's No Place Like Home, the author tackles the very difficult question of what comprises a family. The question posed, liking a thread throughout the book as it attempts to be answered, is what are the issues facing gay and lesbian parents as they choose to construct a...
A review of Things fall apart
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart brilliantly relates to the reader the story of one man's life and chronicles its disintegration. This man's name is Okonkwo; it is his journey and his trials that are followed, most significantly those in which he interacts with his family. From the beginning,...
The Martian chronicles: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
The plot description in the back of this book fascinated me. It is a philosophy or ideal from the mind of the author, which is really almost a palindrome. This is a science fiction book with the idea that there is life on other planets but that they are just as skeptical of our human existence as...
The Iceman cometh: Review
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
The Iceman Cometh is an American tragedy set amidst the desolation of a saloon crowded with the marginalized elements of society. While Eugene O'Neill, the playwright, may not have been the most talented author in his ability to pen the most realistic, eloquent, or beautiful dialogue, he was...
The house of the seven gables: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables is a story more akin to a moral fable than the gothic writing one might expect from a piece of nineteenth century horror. Set across two centuries, and varying between the present and past, Hawthorne captures the peculiar nature of the...
Ayn Rand's The fountainhead: A book review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose to read The Fountainhead based on a couple of recommendations. Written by Ayn Rand, it is an astounding piece of literary work that follows the life of a young architect, Howard Roark. The Fountainhead takes place in New York beginning in the mid-1920's and continues into the 1930's. In...
Ruth Rendell's The crocodile bird: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I came across this book at random when I needed something for a book check. After reading the first few pages I was hooked. The book seemed mysterious and provocative in its own slightly twisted way. This story takes place in a very small town in England in the nineteen eighties and early...
A review of The confessions
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
For this book club I spent a lot of time looking into all of the books on the list that I had never heard of. I read the summary of each of the books on the list and eventually settled on The Confessions by Saint Augustine. I chose this book because it seemed like the Catholic equivalent to...
Koren Zailckas' Smashed: Review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I had seen a recommendation for this book along with an interview of the author more than a year ago in a magazine. It had always looked interesting to me as I am interested in a career in addiction medicine, so when I recently saw it in a store I jumped to buy it. This is the memoir of a girl...
A review: On liberty and utilitarianism
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
John Stuart Mill's treatises on the nature of civil liberty and the political philosophy of utilitarianism are some of the most groundbreaking, and perpetually relevant, discourses on the subjects. His works stand as a testament to the ability for progressive, and at a given point in time...
Of mice and men: A review
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
I read this book because my peers read it. Peer pressure, right? I needed an honors book, it was short, and it was the first book my mom offered me when I told her that a classic would fill the requirement. It is a classic book, not sure what genre it falls under, but Wikipedia places it under...
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This novel covers the time period of three generations. It is a work of fiction but comes off as an autobiography. The narrator, is of the youngest generation, and grew up in Detroit but tells the story as an adult living in Austria. The narrator's parents also grew up in Detroit. The first...
Norman Mailer: The naked and the dead
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
The Naked and the Dead was Norman Mailer's debut novel detailing the lives of a group of American soldiers during World War II. Coming just three years after the conclusion of hostilities, this lengthy tome transported the country back into the horrors of war. The poetry in this first foray...
In cold blood: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood stands as what must be one of the finest works of American storytelling, made all the more gripping by the fact that it is nonfiction. The immense popularity of the tale practically require that some knowledge of the events are ingrained upon an American mind....
Everything is illuminated: Book review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
After watching the movie, Everything is Illuminated; I knew that I had to read the book to prolong the experience that Jonathan Safran Foer wrote about in his novel. There are several different stories inside this single novel. The main story is set in modern day Ukraine and is recorded as the...
Arrowsmith: A review
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis, is a sprawling examination of 1920s America. The author employed his hero of sorts as the vehicle through which he conveyed his distaste for the commercialism that had captured and, in his eyes, corrupted the nation. In order to accomplish this feat, Lewis created...
An individual's encounter with conflict
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
At the center of human nature is a fundamental attraction towards the power of individuals over others. It is upon this subject which thousands of writers have based their learning, to attempt to understand the way people interact with the world around them. Two such writers are Jean-Jacques...
1984: George Orwell - publié le 23/02/2010
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
1984 is a modern classic that is based on a society where a government has the ability to control citizens' minds in order to maintain their power. I selected this book after I read Animal Farm. I had greatly enjoyed reading Animal Farm and thought that I would try reading another book from...
The saga of Seabiscuit
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
During the 1930's, America was recovering from a period where nearly every citizen was completely down and out. The Great Depression had caused the nation to crumble and had left people hopeless and downtrodden. They were looking for a hero, someone to represent their struggle and provide them...
The tale of Evangeline and the rebuilding of an Acadian identity after the "Grand Derangement"
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
In 1847, Henry Longfellow, a well-known American writer published a poem entitled 'Evangéline, a Tale of Acadie', in which he tells a tragic love story of two young Acadians forced to exile during the time of the Deportation. This epic poem of 1400 verses is based on oral tradition and...
