A Literary Giant Confronts His Would-Be Assassin

Salman Rushdie's latest book, 'Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,' is compelling meditation on mortality and free speech.

Classes, Clubs, and Pubs: The World of C.S. Lewis

It is not wrong to say that America made C.S. Lewis. Lewis’s 1942 book The Screwtape Letters was popular in Britain but was initially rejected by American publishers until Macmillan took a chance on it in 1943. It was a huge success. Macmillan quickly brought out his The Problem of Pain and The Case for […]

The post Classes, Clubs, and Pubs: The World of C.S. Lewis appeared first on .

12-Plus Books To Read On Your Road Trips And Beachside This Summer

These are not light reads, but they will give you lots to think about while you stare at the waves.

Virginia Multiculturalists Expel Literary Tradition From State English Standards

If you care about literature, good novels, and poems, Virginia's new English Language Arts standards will depress you.

No Country For Old Men Shows Why There Can Be No Compromise With Evil Like Hamas

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-10-at-2.36.45 PM-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-10-at-2.36.45%5Cu202fPM-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]You cannot coexist with unconditional evil, and Hamas is just that.

Willa Cather’s Nobility

Chasing Bright Medusas is a splendid book, elegantly formulated, casually authoritative, admirably concise, offering a balanced account of a writer I believe the best American novelist of the past century. As its author Benjamin Taylor recounts, Willa Cather did not always receive the most hospitable reception from some of the leading literary critics of her day. But she now no longer needs them, having found full acceptance from that greatest and most stringent of all critics, Time itself, for today, more than 75 years after her death in 1947, her novels and short stories remain immensely readable and significant in a way that Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s and others once better thought of than she no longer do. No one sets out deliberately to write for the ages, but Willa Cather seems to have done just that.

The post Willa Cather’s Nobility appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Was Mrs. Orwell Memory-Holed?

For no particular reason—save, I suppose, his continued literary excellence—George Orwell is the flavor of the month right now. Earlier this year we had D.J. Taylor’s revisitation of his earlier biography of him in Orwell: The New Life, and now we have Anna Funder’s examination of Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Orwell’s first wife and, in Funder’s view, a brilliant woman and crucial influence on her husband’s life and work who has been unjustly airbrushed from history. As she writes early on, "She hasn’t really been in any of the biographies. Orwell’s biographers are seven men looking at a man."

The post Was Mrs. Orwell Memory-Holed? appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The Dearth Of Historical Fiction Is A Disservice To Curious Kids Everywhere

Historical fiction is a gateway to the past, where young readers connect with characters living and dealing in the nuances of those times.

More Fiction, Less Phone Time: Now There’s a Novel Idea

In his latest book, Joseph Epstein, master of essays personal and literary, makes the case for the novel as our indispensable art form. His timing, comic and otherwise, is excellent.

The post More Fiction, Less Phone Time: Now There’s a Novel Idea appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Overthinking the Greatness of Gatsby (Which Is Still Great)

It’s third period English, junior year. You’ve just finished reading The Great Gatsby, and your teacher is prodding the class to consider Fitzgerald’s use of color. Daisy’s white dress, Gatsby’s gold tie, the green light across the blue lawn—what could it all mean?

The post Overthinking the Greatness of Gatsby (Which Is Still Great) appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.