About Books & Literature: Acts of God

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Books & Literature From Erik Wander, your About Books & Literature Editor Because our very existence depends on the predictable working of the planet's atmosphere, we have, since the beginning of time, been in awe of natural phenomena, and there has been and continues to be a fascination with the workings of nature that started long before the words "climate change" entered into the public discourse. Stories about droughts, floods, storms, earthquakes, wildfires, volcanic eruptions or any number of other potentially devastating geologic processes and natural disasters continue to captivate us, as we remain unable to turn away. Works on such acts of God as David McCullough's The Johnstown Flood and, more recently, Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson are among the best examples. This week we take a look at other books from various literary genres about natural disasters and the often tragic consequences they bring. The Grapes of Wrath Set during the Great Depression, John Steinbeck's classic is about the tenant farming Joad family, who are driven from their Oklahoma home because of drought and the economic hardship Dust Bowl families were forced to endure amid the changing agricultural and financial landscape of the times. The Joads join thousands of other "Okies" who set out in search of jobs and fertile land to farm, but also to reclaim their dignity. Growing Heavy for the Vintage Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Novel His First, Only Search Related Topics:  exercises and quizzes  The Year of the Flood In the second book of an as yet completed trilogy of futuristic novels about an apocalyptic time as the earth deteriorates (MaddAddam, the third book, is set for a September 2013 release), Margaret Attwood shifts the perspective on the collapse of civilization from the characters in Oryx and Crake, relatives of the "crakers" living privileged lives in the compounds, to that of the lower class inhabitants of the "pleeblands," where "God's Gardeners" predict "The Flood" that will radically change the planet. Oryx and Crake Noah's Flood Search Related Topics:  science fiction  margaret atwood  Children's Books about Hurricanes Compiled after Hurricane Irene but no less applicable to Sandy, Katrina or any other such powerful, deadly storm, this list by our Children's Books guide includes fiction and nonfiction for a range of ages to help kids gain a better understanding of what hurricanes are and how to prepare for them, live through them and cope with their aftermath. After Katrina, Poet Bids Farewell to New Orleans Poet William Cullen Bryant's 'The Hurricane' Search Related Topics:  bilingual children's books  children's picture books  childrens books about weather The Big Burn In his review of The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by National Book Award winner Timothy Egan, Bestsellers guest reviewer Michael Sullivan calls the Great Fire of 1910 "the largest wildfire in American history," one that "burned 3 million acres in [one] weekend." The story of the wildfire that burned in parts of Washington, Idaho and Montana, including parts of 10 national forests, is interwoven with the story of the founding of the United States Forest Service, which, according to a 2009 New York Times review, Egan tells "as the stirring tale of a very odd couple," Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt's chief forester, "an ascetic loner who sometimes slept on a wooden pillow and for 20 years mystically clung to his deceased fiancée." Learn more about the fire, Roosevelt, Pinchot, the Forest Service and the book they all inspired. Pompeii A Novel The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906 Search Related Topics:  the big burn  timothy egan  Related Searches Novel Books What Is Literature Nonfiction Books Literature Books Kids Books Featured Articles Poets and Their Storms 'The Storm' by Kate Chopin A Wall of White Earthquakes & the San Andreas Fault The Bible's Best Known Flood 'The Perfect Storm' a Real Life Tragedy   More from About.com Run Your First 5K Even couch potatoes can be ready for a 5K with just a couple months of training. Read more...> Help! I'm Too Busy Time and stress management tips to help you feel as though you have more time. Read more...>   Sign up for more free newsletters on your favorite topics You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to the About.com Books & Literature newsletter. If you wish to change your email address or unsubscribe, please click here. About.com respects your privacy: Our Privacy Policy Contact Information: 1500 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, NY, 10036 © 2013 About.com   Advertisement

About Books & Literature: Nom de Plume

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Books & Literature From Erik Wander, your About Books & Literature Editor What would your pen name be if you had to choose one? We learned last week that Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling, whose real name is Joanne, would choose "Robert Galbraith," a revelation that sent sales of Galbraith's "debut" mystery novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, skyrocketing. This week we take a look at some of the best books of all time written under pseudonyms and some of the best-known authors' names that were actually pen names. Samuel Langhorne Clemens as Mark Twain It's tough to choose "Twain's" best. The first impulse would be to go with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). You could even make a sleeper case for A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). Decide for yourself with this list of some of the best Twain collections, including the novels, but also short stories, essays and other writings. Why 'Mark Twain' as a Pen Name? What Does Mark Twain Mean? Search Related Topics:  mark twain  american literature  collections Mary Ann Evans as George Eliot Silas Marner (1861) comes to mind as one of Eliot's best, or at least among her best (yes, her best), and you can't overlook Middlemarch (1872). But why did Evans, one of the most renowned writers of the Victorian Era when writing as Eliot, use such a masculine pen name? Well, because it was the Victorian Era, and, not unlike the Bronte sisters before her, she didn't believe a woman would be taken seriously as a writer. Jane Eyre by 'Currer Bell' Wuthering Heights by 'Ellis Bell' Anne Bronte, A.K.A. 'Acton Bell' Search Related Topics:  george eliot  english literature  women writers Alice in Wonderland & Charles Lutwidge Dodgson You thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) was penned by Lewis Carroll, right? Well, it was, and it wasn't. It seems "Lewis Carroll" was actually the pen name used by the Reverand Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematician and photographer in addition to being an Anglican deacon and, of course, a writer. It's true; go ask Alice. Everything to Know about Dr. Seuss Theodor Geisel, Not the Same Ring Just Who is Lemony Snicket? Search Related Topics:  alice's adventures in wonderland  lewis carroll  fantasy Animal Farm by Eric Arthur Blair I mean George Orwell. Yes, this allegorical, dystopian masterpiece was written under Blair's now legendary pen name. "Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself," wrote Blair/Orwell in Animal Farm. 1984 By Definition, Orwellian Search Related Topics:  animal farm  george orwell  banned books Related Searches English Literature Novel Books What Is Literature Books and Authors American Literature Featured Articles Stephen King as Stephen King, Richard Bachman Fifty Shades' E.L. James (Erika Mitchell) The Mission Song by John le Carré (David Cornwell) Michael Crichton's Many Books, Many Names Who Wrote the Nancy Drew Books? Madeleine Wickham as Sophie Kinsella   More from About.com Run Your First 5K Even couch potatoes can be ready for a 5K with just a couple months of training. Read more...> Help! I'm Too Busy Time and stress management tips to help you feel as though you have more time. Read more...>   Sign up for more free newsletters on your favorite topics You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to the About.com Books & Literature newsletter. If you wish to change your email address or unsubscribe, please click here. About.com respects your privacy: Our Privacy Policy Contact Information: 1500 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, NY, 10036 © 2013 About.com   Advertisement

About Books & Literature: The Road Taken

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Books & Literature From Erik Wander, your About Books & Literature Editor Travel, adventure, hitting the road; we do it every summer, or at least most of us want to do it if we can. Sure, we take planes, arriving at the airport with plenty of time to check in for the flight, get through security and wait, and wait and wait. But there's something about a road trip, and few writers have described that elusory, mysterious something better than Jack Kerouac, who shortly after publishing his road trip opus wrote in the introduction to photographer Robert Frank's The Americans, a road trip masterpiece in its own right, of the "madroad driving men ahead--the mad road, lonely, leading around the bend into the openings of space towards the horizon." On the Road One of the defining works of the Beat Generation, Kerouac's novel takes readers along with him and his friends on a cross-country road trip set against the backdrop of 1950s America, jazz music, poetry and drugs. "Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me," wrote Kerouac in the opening chapter, one of many memorable lines you'll find on this list of gems from On the Road. The Road by Cormac McCarthy The Journals of Jack Kerouac Search Related Topics:  on the road  jack kerouac  poetry quotes Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance This influential novel is Robert M. Pirsig's first-person account of a two-and-a-half-week trip from Minnesota to California with his son and some friends who join them for a portion of the journey. Along the way, they stop for regular "Chautauquas," or philosophical discussions, which are interwoven with the story of Phaedrus, a college writing teacher and Pirsig-as-the-narrator's past self grappling with defining the concept of "quality." Pirsig writes in the introduction that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance "should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice," and that the book is "not very factual on motorcycles either." Stream of Consciousness & The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Hunter S. Thompson Novel Among Best Set in Vegas Search Related Topics:  writers on writing  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn A young boy travels down the Mississippi on a raft and has adventures along the way. That's the gist of and certainly the simplest way to describe Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But this picaresque novel, in which you only have to replace "the road" with the river to fit the theme, is about much more. At times a scathing satire of the South's Antebellum Era, it's also one of the great American novels and represents Twain at his finest. Don't Forget About Tom (Sawyer) Jonathon Swift's Gulliver's Travels Search Related Topics:  mark twain  huckleberry finn  american literature James and the Giant Peach When it comes to children's literature, the theme of "the road" has to be suspended to an extent (most kids can't drive), but travel and adventure? They're fundamental to the genre. The protagonist in Roald Dahl's 1961 novel, a young English orphan, travels around the world not in a vehicle of any sort or a raft, but in an enormous, magic peach. And his adventures are every bit as wild as Huckleberry Finn's and every bit as surreal or meaningful as Kerouac's or Pirsig's. Discover where James Henry Trotter's most unusual mode of transportation takes him. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland The Chronicles of Narnia Search Related Topics:  roald dahl  banned books  children's books Related Searches English Literature Children Literature American Literature Best Books Books Literature Featured Articles Around the World in 80 days Eat, Pray, Love 'Into the Wild,' the Movie Treasure Island The Grapes of Wrath Live Your Road Trip Dream   More from About.com Run Your First 5K Even couch potatoes can be ready for a 5K with just a couple months of training. Read more...> Help! I'm Too Busy Time and stress management tips to help you feel as though you have more time. Read more...>   Sign up for more free newsletters on your favorite topics You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to the About.com Books & Literature newsletter. If you wish to change your email address or unsubscribe, please click here. About.com respects your privacy: Our Privacy Policy Contact Information: 1500 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, NY, 10036 © 2013 About.com   Advertisement

About Books & Literature: Zombie Wars, Prada, Long Division

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Books & Literature From Erik Wander, your About Books & Literature Editor This week we've got Lauren Weisberger's much-anticipated sequel to The Devil Wears Prada; zombies, both in print and in theaters; a debut novel by Kiese Laymon; some award-winning young adult fiction and more. Looking for some ideas about what to read next? Here's a look at some of what our books and literature guides have been up to lately. A World War against Zombies The 2006 novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is Max Brooks' follow-up to The Zombie Survival Guide (2003) and an apocalyptic horror story about, you guessed it, a war against zombies. Brooks constructs the narrative, as the title suggests, from individual accounts of the war several years hence. "Instead of being shocked by the thought of zombies, the populace just shrugs them off as another over-hyped media scare tactic, like SARS or the Bird Flu," writes our Contemporary Literature reviewer. "Once the zombies begin to sweep across the earth, the world's governments all begin to fall back on cold war era nuclear strategy, namely securing areas that are defensible and sacrificing the civilian population for the sake of long term human survival." Read the book before you see it in theaters. World War Z on the Big Screen Why We Love, Hate Adaptations Search Related Topics:  science fiction  war  Revenge Wears Prada Author and former assistant at Vogue Lauren Weisberger is back with the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada (2003), a novel that didn't exactly gain critical acclaim but was adapted into a hugely successful movie with a star-studded cast that included Meryl Streep, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Miranda Priestly, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. Miranda and her assistant, Andrea (portrayed by Hathaway in the film version), are back in Weisberger's 2013 follow-up, Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns, but will readers like it as much as the first book? Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende Tenth of December by George Saunders Search Related Topics:  revenge wears prada  lauren weisberger  the devil wears prada 'Long Division' a Complex, Compelling Debut "Two parts Southern Literature, one part Magical Realism with a healthy dose of time-travel, Kiese Laymon's Long Division is as unlikely and compelling a literary fusion as you'd hope to find in a debut novel," writes our Contemporary Literature guide in this review. Complete with interwoven plotlines, a character named "City" and time travel, the novel, which takes place in part in 2013, 1985 and 1964, is about race, love and coming-of-age in post-Katrina Jackson, Mississippi. It's a "serious book" but has "a thread of humor running through it," according to our guide, with a nod to Haruki Murakami. Find out what you can learn about Long Division. In the Land of the Living This is The End Search Related Topics:  southern literature  time travel  magical realism 'In Darkness' Wins Young Adult Fiction Award The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) announced that In Darkness by Nick Lake was this year's Michael L. Printz Award-winner for excellence in young adult fiction. Find out why and what other authors took home YA literary awards. Ink Spirit Search Related Topics:  ya award winning books  yalsa  ya fiction Related Searches Books Awards Best Books Books and Authors Literature Bird Books Featured Articles Visit Locations in Dan Brown's 'Inferno' Jim Gaffigan, Author of 'Dad is Fat' 'Each Kindness' for Kids 5-8 'Beyond Courage' for Middle Graders Outliers 'Seraphina' the Best YA Debut   More from About.com Run Your First 5K Even couch potatoes can be ready for a 5K with just a couple months of training. Read more...> Help! I'm Too Busy Time and stress management tips to help you feel as though you have more time. Read more...>   Sign up for more free newsletters on your favorite topics You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed to the About.com Books & Literature newsletter. If you wish to change your email address or unsubscribe, please click here. About.com respects your privacy: Our Privacy Policy Contact Information: 1500 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, NY, 10036 © 2013 About.com   Advertisement