Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities

Italo Calvino’s stories do not imitate, familiarize, or instruct a reader toward the infinite possibilities of imagination. They transcend, magnify, and remodel the fabric of literature itself. Invisible Cities is an unconventional and intuitive book of descriptions. Descriptions of the inner workings of many cities that are masterfully-crafted to tickle the mind’s eye. You...

Harold Bloom’s How To Read And Why

Harold Bloom’s How To Read And Why

In Literature, the only constant is the solitary act of reading. But even that, Harold Bloom writes, has been deeply mistranslated. The function of solitary reading – be it short stories, plays, poetry, novels – is grossly misunderstood as an appetite for escapism or to provoke the fancies of idealism. What it is, what...

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Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others

Susan Sontag’s writing is for the passionate and the aloof. It’s for the performer and the audience. The tendencies of which exist in each of us. Her writing is the epitome of wisdom, knowledge, and most importantly, perspective. The specificity of emotions when pitted against the suffering of others. And still, it evokes disgust,...

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E. M. Cioran’s A Short History of Decay

“Chaos is rejecting all you have learned. Chaos is being yourself.” It’s a rare thing to find in a loyally-pessimistic writer the bridge that connects wisdom with nothingness. Cioran writes about heroes and hermits alike. He shines the torch on the uncertainty, incompetence, and excesses of both. And the way they breed in humanity...

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Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

It’s such sophisticated and symbolic writing. Jane Eyre is Bronte’s psychological and emotional vessel – molded and contoured through vivid descriptions of nature, gothic landscapes, obscure shadows, and alter egos. It is masterfully-adorned in unconventional romanticism and wisdom. Straightforward, candid, and unreserved – Jane Eyre coalesces courage and impeccable writing to revise the narrative...