(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.) As a hardcore pacifist and anti-military activist, this book might surprise all of you by appearing in this list. Not to mention, it’s old (as old as me, in… Read More »Red Storm Rising

(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.) This is the book that I always answer with when someone asks me what I think is, without question, the best book in the history of literature. I have… Read More »Sophie’s World

(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.) There are many books by Yasunari Kawabata floating around in discussions of “best books” over the last few decades but I would suggest that this, probably his best-known work,… Read More »Snow Country

(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.) Divergent, the first of the series by the same name from Veronica Roth, is a clear demonstration not only of what youth-focused literature can be but what it should… Read More »Divergent

(This post is one in a series about the best books ever written. The first post in the series is here.) I did indeed like Angels and Demons enough to put it on my list of best books ever written. And that may shock some people — actually, that does… Read More »Angels and Demons

As many of you are no doubt aware, I teach creative writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels, sometimes to high school students, too. I believe that there is a far too significant break between the study of literature and that of writing. We often are forced to pretend that… Read More »Writing a Future?