By Nava Atlas | On August 25, 2017 | Updated February 20, 2026 | Comments (4)
Annie Allen is a 1949 collection of poems by Gwendolyn Brooks. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950, making her the first Black writer to receive this award.
The poems don’t flinch from the violence and racism that are part of Annie’s milieu, and end with her hopes for a better world than the one she has inhabited.
Central to this book, in addition to individual poems, is a 43-stanza epic poem, “The Anniad” (a reference to the epic poem “The Aeneid” by Virgil, the ancient Roman poet) follows the life of Annie, an African-American girl, from birth to womanhood, as she seeks self-awareness and fulfillment. Read More→
By Anna Fiore | On August 22, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
The original edition of Birds of America by Mary McCarthy describes it as “the story of Peter Levi, an innocent abroad, who is Ms. McCarthy’s Candide. In the fall of 1964, he arrives in France to do his junior year at the Sorbonne after spending a bizarre holiday in New England with his enchanting mother.”
Mary McCarthy (1912 – 1989) was an American author, drama critic, and political activist. During her lifetime, she authored more than two dozen books, and gained attention as a cutting critic who argued for the need for creative liberty that transcended ideology.
Her work is known for its precise prose and intricate blend of fiction and non-fiction. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On August 19, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
The Trouble I’ve Seen: Four Stories from the Great Depression by Martha Gellhorn (1936) is a book of four linked stories based on the author’s firsthand observations of the Great Depression.
They capture the emotional, financial, and spiritual devastation wrought by the financial collapse in America in the 1930s.
Unemployment, loss of hope, and abject poverty are captured by a woman who would go on to become one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On August 17, 2017 | Updated November 18, 2022 | Comments (0)
During World War I, Enid Bagnold was a member of the British Women’s Services. She served for about a year and a half in the V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment), as a nurse’s aide.
Her duties were to attend to the non-medical needs of wounded British soldiers recovering from wounds in the Royal Herbert Hospital, just a few miles southeast of London. Some of the injuries she witnessed were absolutely horrific.
A Diary Without Dates was written almost as a dreamlike prose-poem, portraying the suffering of soldiers, many of whom faced mutilation, wrenching pain, and death. Thus, it became a timeless commentary on the traumas of war. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On August 15, 2017 | Updated October 8, 2022 | Comments (1)
National Velvet by Enid Bagnold is a classic 1935 novel telling the story of fourteen-year-old Velvet Brown, the daughter of a working-class family in England.
Velvet is so horse-crazy that she indulges in both fervent and pedestrian fantasies — going on horseback journeys, leading horses to pastures, and simply grooming them.
“Oh, God, give me horses, give me horses!” Velvet prays early on in the book, “Let me be the best rider in England!” Read More→
Categories: 
Comments: