The first book in Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, Hyperion is a complex and beautifully-imagined work of science fiction. Using the same framing structure as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, it’s a breathtaking work of worldbuilding. On the eve of an apocalyptic invasion,…
Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most celebrated and debated living American writers. Over the course of seven decades, Oates has published nearly 60 novels, a slew of short stories, plays, essays, and poetry. What’s most remarkable about her…
Almost seven decades after the publication of its first volume, J.R.R. Tolkien’s foundational epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings remains incredibly influential. A success upon initial publication, it soared to cultural dominance when the counterculture of the 1960s discovered…
Over the course of 26 novels and counting, Jack Reacher has become one of the most popular characters in the thriller world. Physically imposing, Reacher is a brilliant character. He’s a patriot who served his country honorably in the military…
The Stand is Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic story about the scattered survivors of a deadly, engineered plague. King’s a master at worldbuilding and character work, and those skills are on full display in this novel of good versus evil. It fundamentally…
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is a book that defies easy categorization. It’s a horror novel, yes, but also a love story, a work of ergodic literature (fiction that requires navigating text in ways that go beyond simply…
Although there are those who question its relevance and appropriateness in the modern classroom, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird remains a beloved classic. The story of Tom Robinson, a Black man falsely accused of sexual assault in a small…
Jules Verne was one of the most influential popular writers in modern history. A forerunner of the science fiction genre, Verne took inspiration from the explosion of technological progress during the Industrial Revolution. He crafted adventure stories where daring, intelligent…
There was a time when Michael Crichton ruled pop culture like few authors before. Crichton, who held an M.D. from Harvard, leveraged his intense interest in science, history, and technology into page-turning stories. He wrote screenplays for films like Westworld…
In both style and challenge, Cormac McCarthy is unique among modern American writers. Utilizing a writing style that eschews unnecessary punctuation to a degree that should render his prose unreadable, McCarthy compensates by employing terse, direct sentence structures filled with…