Gertrude Stein is one of those writers whose reputation is often noticed before her work. Many people recognize her most famous lines or the portraits of her, while fewer have spent time inside her writing itself. Yet Stein’s importance should rest less on her reputation than on her persistence. She pursued a lifelong attention to how language works, how thoughts form and how repetition can alter the meaning of words themselves. She didn’t set out to confuse readers (despite what some of you may believe). She set out to look closely and to make her readers do the same. She was not interested in impressing her audience so much as training them. Her decades spanning undertaking was her attention – to language, to human thought and to the way meaning changes when words are allowed to… linger.

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Stein was born in Pittsburgh in 1874 and spent much of her childhood moving between the United States and Europe. This early sense of displacement could perhaps help explain her later interest in identity. She decided on a course of study at Harvard’s Radcliffe College, where she trained under psychologist and philosopher William James (one of the founders of modern psychology). This time with a tutor so keenly interested in the “whys” of the mind are clearly visible in her later work, and her ideas about consciousness and attention. After a brief stint in medicine – because why not explore the inside of the body while pondering the mind – she settled in Paris in 1903. As her home, Paris offered Stein intellectual freedom and a ready audience for unconventional ideas. It was buzzing with expatriates and creativity already, and Stein jumped right in! She lived with her brother Leo (who was frankly essential to her early career), and together they became collectors of both art and ideas. They hosted gatherings that attracted painters, writers and thinkers and together this group began reshaping the way art functioned in society. Hemingway, Picasso, Matisse… these were just some of the names that popped in and popped out of Stein’s salon – drawn to her by her wit, her sharp eye for talent and perhaps the promise of a good argument or stimulating conversation. 

Stein’s writing career developed gradually but deliberately. Her first major publication, Three Lives (1909), marked her first major success and announced her interest in deep dives into ordinary inner lives with unconventional narrative. Using subtlety in language instead of any dramatic action, Stein showed that for her, plot was secondary. What mattered in her work was the language itself. How words felt in sequence, how sentences could repeat and slowly alter their own meaning. Her focus on language intensified with her book Tender Buttons (published in 1914) – a work that remains challenging to read to this day because it abandons normal description and simply refuses to explain itself. Her work asks readers to stay with the words themselves, rather than rush past them to find out the story.

Stein’s influence extended quite far beyond her own work. Her unique style gave others permission to write differently themselves. She helped usher in modernist literature’s playful and more fragmented feel. Ernest Hemingway, despite their later disagreements, once famously said that all modern American literature began with Stein’s Three Lives. Later readers would see in her work an early hint that language (and specifically how you structure it) simply affects reality. Her much quoted “a rose is a rose is a rose” is not a riddle so much as a statement. Repetition does not get rid of the meaning of the words, it just changes how we notice them.

Stein remained in Paris until her death in 1946, continuing to write with conviction and remaining a fixture of the Parisian intellectual scene she helped create. Her work may not be considered easy reading (okay, it certainly is not), but whether you love her or scratch your head at her writing style she transformed literature, undeniably. She changed how writers think about words – not just looking at them as a way to convey meaning, but as experiences within themselves. Her writing gave her audience a way of reading that slowed the world down, and reminds us that paying attention can itself be considered a creative act! Happy Birthday to Gertrude Stein!

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On January 5, 1953, theatergoers in Paris sat down expecting a play and instead got a master class in… waiting. The curtain rose on Waiting for Godot, and almost immediately the show began testing everyone’s patience. Two men stand around. They talk. They argue. They wait. Nothing much happens… and that is very much the point. More than seventy years later, the play still feels oddly familiar, like being stuck in a line that never moves but pretending you’re totally fine with it!

The man responsible for this test in existential endurance was Samuel Beckett, an Irish writer living in France who had grown tired of what he considered “literary excess”. Beckett studied under James Joyce but decided to go in the opposite direction, choosing restraint over a flourishing pen and maximalism. After World War II, and after serving in the French Resistance, his outlook on the world and the literary scene darkened (and sharpened). He began writing in French instead of English simply to limit himself and “write without style”, cutting the language he used down to the bone. Waiting for Godot, written in the late 1940s, came from his desire to say less but mean more, even if what it meant was uncertainty.

The entire plot of the play, such as it is, could fit a write up on a cocktail napkin – as it is deceptively minimal. Vladimir and Estragon wait by a tree for a man named Godot. He never shows up. They pass the time with talking, arguing, joking, despairing, forgetting what they’ve said, and consider not waiting – though they never leave. Their wordplay, irritation with each other, physical comedy and philosophical musings loop back on themselves again… and again. Along the way, they meet Pozzo and his servant Lucky, a pair locked in a disturbing and absurd power dynamic whose relationship seems to mirror power structures that feel both irrational and illogical. Each act ends almost exactly where it began. The men contemplate leaving, then do not. Godot sends word that he will come tomorrow. Tomorrow never arrives. 

What Beckett achieved with Waiting for Godot was nothing short of a theatrical upheaval. The play became a cornerstone of the Theatre of the Absurd, a movement that rejected the tidy plots and comforting answers of the time. Beckett showed that boredom, repetition and confusion could be meaningful dramatic tools and could, in and of themselves, make a point to viewers. Most importantly, he trusted audiences to sit with discomfort and recognize truth in it. We are all waiting for something, after all. Godot just happened to be honest enough to admit it! 

The play, whose name everyone knows over seventy years later, remains famous to this day. Not because it explains anything at all, but because it refuses to. It reminds us of a universal aspect of the human condition – the habit of waiting for something… anything, really – to make sense of the time that we’re given. Happy 73rd birthday to Waiting for Godot. Word on the street is… we’re all still waiting for him to show up!

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Since December 10th marks the annual Nobel Prize ceremony – the exact same date the very first prizes were awarded in 1901 – it feels like today is the right moment to look back at how this tradition began and why it still carries so much weight in our modern world. A little history and a nod to this year’s laureates make today a good day to trace how a century old idea turned into one of the world’s most influential celebrations of human achievement.

The Nobel Prize originated from the slightly unusual and forward-thinking will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor and industrialist known best for being the creator of dynamite and holding more than 350 patents in his lifetime. His work spanned the gamut, from explosive technology to synthetic materials – and he spent decades building laboratories and factories across Europe. After a premature obituary criticized him for profiting from destruction (…dynamite), Nobel redirected his legacy to reward those who advanced peace, knowledge and human progress. When the first prizes were awarded in 1901, they made official a global commitment to science, literature and humanitarianism that has grown into one of the world’s most respected traditions!

Over the decades, the prize has spotlighted work that directly shaped modern life. Marie Curie’s discoveries in radioactivity changed both physics and medicine. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Peace Prize underscored the global stakes of civil rights. Tu Youyou’s work on malaria treatment has saved millions of lives, and economists like Amartya Sen reframed how nations think about poverty and welfare. Literature laureates – Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, Kazuo Ishiguro, and many, many others – have expanded the world’s imagination and our moral vocabulary, reminding us why stories, reading and books matter. The prize helps shape our societies by amplifying ideas that shift public understanding and can help put our resources toward promising research. They even legitimize movements that might otherwise struggle for visibility. It’s not merely ceremonial at this point… in 2025 it’s a catalyst.

During today’s Nobel presentation, the Literature Prize goes to László Krasznahorkai, whose dense, hypnotic prose and visionary narrative style have made him one of contemporary literature’s most distinctive voices. Alongside him, laureates in Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Peace and Economics will take the stage to receive their medals and give speeches of honor. Not only that, but today they join the ranks of those that rewrote the world in some way. So as the world watches, today’s ceremony is more than tradition – it’s a moment to honor ideas that might just shape our future. So let’s celebrate brilliance and dedication and honor those who remind us that humanity’s brightest moments often begin with curiosity, courage… and little sparks of genius!

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Lawrence Durrell (1912 – 1990), the British novelist, poet, and travel writer whose life seemed destined for anywhere but England. Born in Jalandhar, India to British colonial parents, Durrell spent his early years living a life of bright chaos – an atmosphere that would later be seen in his fiction in color and sensuality. When sent to boarding school in England at eleven, he famously loathed the experience, calling England “the English death.” That early rebellion and dislike truly shaped him as both a person and an author – he would spend much of his life chasing light, warmth and an escape from what he considered dreary England. After a brief (and frustrating) attempt at University, Durrell left for the Greek island of Corfu with his first wife, Nancy, in the 1930s. There, the family (including his younger brother Gerald, the future naturalist and author) formed a relatively eccentric expatriate circle that became the stuff of literary legend.

War and wanderlust kept him moving constantly – from Corfu to Egypt, Rhodes, Cyprus, and finally to southern France. His personal life was complicated and often chaotic… four marriages, several affairs and the emotional turbulence that shadows those who seem to live according to the wind, so to speak. Yet through it all, he wrote… and he wrote beautifully. His years in Alexandria during the 1940s inspired The Alexandria Quartet, his masterwork – four novels (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea) exploring themes of love, politics and memory in Egypt. The books feel as though they simmer with philosophical depth and nuance, reflecting Durrell’s belief that “man is only an extension of the spirit of the place.” To Durrell, language and place (geographical place, at least) were inseparable!

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Durrell’s writing had much been influenced by the Greek poet C. P. Cavafy, whose presence echoes through the Quartet novels and beyond. Though Cavafy had died in 1933, his meditations on desire, memory and the passage of time haunted Durrell’s imagination. Durrell’s novels clearly see his connection to Cavafy’s quiet melancholy and reverence for ancient locales, particularly in the Mediterranean. Durrell’s travel writings – Prospero’s Cell, Reflections on a Marine Venus, and Bitter Lemons – revealed his own gift for turning geography into poetry.

Durrell died in Sommières, in the south of France, on November 7, 1990, leaving behind a life of prose that still seems to glow with the heat of the Mediterranean. (One suspects he was never lost, just always on his way somewhere slightly more interesting… curious for someone who wrote so passionately about stillness, yet never sat still long enough to prove his thoughts!) Today his work remains a celebration of landscape, love and the stubborn human desire to belong… everywhere and nowhere all at once.

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Today marks the birthday of Mary Oliver (born on September 10th, 1935), one of America’s most beloved poets. Known for her clarity, gentleness and attentions to the natural world, Oliver wrote poems that spoke directly to her readers’ lives and basic desires. Her words invite us all to slow down, breathe in the air of the world around us and recognize beauty and meaning that might otherwise go unnoticed in our fast paced world.

Born in Maple Heights, Ohio, Oliver found comfort in long walks outdoors during her often difficult childhood. She grew up with a deep sensitivity to both the struggles and wonders of life, and these walks in nature became a foundation of her poetic voice. As an adult, she lived for many years in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with her partner Molly Malone Cook, where she continued to write in close communion with the natural world. Over the course of her entire career, Oliver published more than 15 different collections of poetry, becoming one of the best-selling poets in the United States.

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Her poems turn often to themes of nature and spirituality. In Dog Songs (2013), she celebrates the companionship between human and canines with lines like, “Steadfastness is more about dogs than about us,” and “Everybody needs a safe place – both dog and owner.” Love and joy abound from start to finish in that collection. Similarly, in A Thousand Mornings (published in 2012), Oliver reminds us that beauty and joy are available if only we reach for them purposefully. In Poem of the World, she wrote “Everything sooner or later is a part of everything else,” a simple yet profound line that leaves her readers with the tangible thoughts of life’s interconnectedness. Her Pulitzer Prize winning American Primitive (published in 1984) and other works such as Wild Geese show her gift for joining humility and wisdom, and encouraging us to find forgiveness (and freedom) in nature’s liberating solutions.

All of these can help us make the statement that Oliver’s influence on the literary world is immense. She made poetry accessible to millions who might otherwise feel excluded from it, showing that the genre could be both profound and still approachable. Writers and readers can draw inspiration from her work, which continues to circulate widely in classrooms, spiritual gatherings, and on social media… proof that her voice remains deeply alive today!

To read Mary Oliver is a gift, and is to awaken every part of ourselves, exposed and hidden, and to rediscover our true selves in the process. We honor her on what would be her 90th birthday!

It’s back to school already! Every summer, high school students across the country crack open a familiar set of classic novels – books that have stood the test of time for good reasons. These stories aren’t just academic checkboxes (though they are often that, as well)… they’re full of big ideas (perfect for the growing youth), unforgettable characters and timeless themes that still resonate with readers today. Whether you enjoyed them or groaned through them, these five books have earned their spot on this list as summer reading staples – and in honor of the beginning of the new school year for those lucky enough to still have summer vacations, we thought we’d give them a once over!

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is not just a fabulous piece of required reading (and my personal favorite from the list) – it’s also a rather powerful look at the concept of justice and prejudice set in a coming-of-age story in the American South. Unfortunately, neither injustice nor prejudice have been erased from our daily lives, and through this story we regain our perspective, our youthful hopes and even our self-respect. Narrated by the unforgettable Scout, we experience life through the eyes of a child who is trying to make sense of the complexities of the world, and things she doesn’t necessarily understand. Between her father Atticus’ courtroom heroics and the mysterious (and ultimately lovable) Boo Radley, there’s never a dull moment in this beautiful novel.

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The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
How many ‘Holden Caulfields’ have we known in the years since we were first “introduced” to him? J.D. Salinger’s classic still resonates with readers today, with thanks to Caulfield – one of literature’s most iconic (and opinionated) narrators. Holden’s sarcastic, alienated voice guides us through his frustrations with adulthood, phoniness and the common aches of growing up. This book captures teen angst like few others… and despite Holden’s gripes, it’s hard not to find a little bit of ourselves in his struggle.

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1984 by George Orwell
Orwell’s dystopian vision of a totalitarian future may have been written decades ago, but 1984 continues to chill readers to the core. Through narrator Winston Smith we see a world where independent thought is dangerous, privacy doesn’t exist and even language is under control of a government. It’s a gripping and unsettling read… and a must for anyone interested in the power of government, media and the resilience of the human spirit. In all honesty, we sometimes think that perhaps 1984 should be required reading of all ages today, in lieu of daily news headlines.

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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

This classic sci-fi and fantasy story takes us on a mind-bending adventure through time and space – and through some pretty big questions along the way. As Meg Murry and her brother and friend journey to rescue her father (a scientist who has gone missing while working on a strange project), they are joined by unforgettable characters and learn powerful lessons about love and the strength of the human spirit. L’Engle’s blend of science and heart has made this a favorite for generations – and ultimately questions the power of love and good over evil.

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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Mark Twain couldn’t help but make this list! Friendship leading to personal growth is one of life’s most powerful gifts… and Mark Twain delivers this message with humor and heart in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. With a cast of beloved characters like Aunt Polly, Huckleberry Finn, and Becky Thatcher readers are swept into a somewhat mischievous charm of long ago. Tom Sawyer is a (relatively) light-hearted romp through childhood that also manages to say some meaningful things about growing up.

Honorable Mentions (we wouldn’t want to leave out anyone’s favorite!):

• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

From courtroom dramas to dystopian futures and mysterious and/or fun childhood adventures, these classics continue to challenge, inspire and entertain generations of students. Love them or loathe them, they’ve made their mark on us all at one time or another… and they’re likely to stick around on summer reading lists for years to come.

This week on July 30th, we honor a woman whose quiet, isolated life concealed the stormy intensity of her writing – Emily Brontë. Known best for her novel Wuthering Heights, Brontë is, in our opinion, one of the most enigmatic figures in English literature. Though her published work was limited, her legacy continues over the literary landscape even today.

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Emily was born in the West Yorkshire village of Thornton, but grew up in the rather isolated moorland town of Haworth, where her father, Patrick Brontë, worked as the local curate. A stern but loving presence, as a father Patrick acted as a literary influence – encouraging his children to read and write from early ages. The Brontë household was filled with tragedy as well as creativity, unfortunately. Emily lost her mother at a young age, followed by two older sisters shortly after. However, these early losses seemed to bind the surviving Brontë siblings (Charlotte, Anne, Emily, and their brother Branwell) into a close-knit, imaginative unit. Together, they created fictional worlds like Gondal and Angria, writing intricate stories, poems and even histories. Emily was especially drawn to nature and solitude, preferring the wild moors over social gatherings (same, honestly). As a young adult she briefly attended school and tried her hand at teaching, but struggled heavily with homesickness. Her time away only confirmed her attachment to home and the rugged natural landscape that would so deeply inform her writing.

In adulthood, Emily remained largely reclusive, focusing on writing and supporting her family instead of meeting people or trying her hand at courtship as others her age might have. In 1846, she and her sisters self-published a collection of poetry under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (spoiler alert: it didn’t sell well). The sisters chose male-sounding pen names to avoid the gender bias of Victorian literary critics, fearing that women writers would not be taken seriously – if at all. While their relationships were loving, there did seem to be a gentle undertone of friendly competition among them, particularly between Charlotte and Emily. Each sister had a distinct voice, but they shared a fierce passion for writing and often read and critiqued each other’s work. Emily’s poems, now highly regarded, reveal her affinity for the metaphysical, the elements and the eternal life. Then, only a year after their published poetical works, she published Wuthering Heights – a dark, emotionally raw novel that challenged Victorian sensibilities with its portrayal of obsession, revenge, and destructive love. Critics at the time seemed puzzled (if not scandalized) by the book’s brutality and even its structure. Sadly, Emily would not live to see her novel’s eventual acclaim. She died of tuberculosis in December 1848 at the age of 30, just a year after its release.

Today Emily Brontë can be remembered as a literary trailblazer. Her fierce, unflinching voice (which all the Brontë siblings had, to a point) paved the way for generations of writers to explore human psychology and intense passion in their work. From Virginia Woolf to Sylvia Plath to contemporary gothic fiction, Brontë’s influence continues to echo in writers… especially ones who wish to embrace intensity over convention, or depth over decorum. Happy Birthday to Emily Brontë!

This Fourth of July (as we celebrate the United States and reflect on the ideals of resilience and renewal that our nation was built on) is a fitting time to revisit moments in our history that defined us as a country. Few chapters of US history did more to shape “modern” America than FDR’s New Deal – a bold response to one of the country’s darkest economic chapters. In honor of Independence Day, we’re taking a quick moment to look back at how this program gave Americans not just work and wages, but something just as crucial… hope.

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By the time President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, the Great Depression had left millions of Americans jobless, hungry and uncertain about their futures. This “New Deal”, rolled out in two major phases, aimed to provide immediate relief, economic recovery and lasting reform to citizens. Programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) put people back to work building the very bones of the nation – roads, bridges, parks and even public buildings. Financial reforms, including the creation of the FDIC and new banking regulations, helped stabilize a system that had collapsed. The Social Security Act of 1935 laid a foundation of support for the elderly and unemployed that has continued ever since. For those living at the time (especially the new waves of immigrants entering the country), the New Deal became an icon of a new era, and sparked a desire to give back and show appreciation for the country that had accepted them and given them the opportunity to better their lives. Not everyone was a fan, even at the time – critics on both sides debated the power of Roosevelt’s policies. That being said, the legacy of his administration’s New Deal remains deeply embedded in American life and helped pull us out of the Great Depression.

And yes, if the words “New Deal” have you thinking of little orphan Annie, you’re not wrong. “A new deal for Christmas” was much more than just a catchy lyric. The hopeful spirit captured in song form in 1977 (based, however on a 1924 comic strip) truly mirrored the broader scope of Roosevelt’s programs, which in all honesty seemed to aim not only towards patching up a sinking economy but towards lifting the national mood. It gave an entire generation a reason to be grateful to their leaders, their government and their country. This week as we commemorate the birth of our nation it is worth remembering that the fight for respect, stability and dignity didn’t end in 1776. It has been renewed over and over, especially in times of crisis. America’s 92-year-old New Deal reminds us that with a little faith in tomorrow, even the hardest days can be overcome. Happy Fourth, bibliophiles!