When he was writing Fahrenheit 451 in the early 1950s, Ray Bradbury was trying to invent a dystopian world where learning and free thought were threatened. He was worried about censorship, and about the way new mass media—like television and movies—were changing society. So he … [Read more...]
Classic Reconsidered: The House on Mango Street
We're looking at what makes you, you this month, and questions of identity are always questions about stories. Whose story gets told? How do you capture the messy, complicated nature of identity? What impact do race, gender, culture, and poverty have? That's why we're … [Read more...]
Classic Reconsidered: Jurassic Park
One surefire way to make fossils exciting are to make them come to life—literally! Perhaps that's why Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park has become one of the hallmarks of American culture over the past thirty years. … [Read more...]
Classic Reconsidered: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
There aren't any classic novels about self-driving cars (at least not that we could think of). But there are plenty of classic novels about the thing that self-driving cars help you do: travel. And when it comes to futuristic journeys, one of the first that comes to mind is … [Read more...]
Classic Reconsidered: Freakonomics
Freakonomics: It's an economics book with a silly name that become a best-seller, then spawned three follow-up books, and a blog, a radio show, and more. It's kind of surprising for a nonfiction book like this to become such a phenomenon. But the authors would be the first to … [Read more...]
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