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Director Jingle Ma has been quite outspoken in his insistence that this version of the story of Mulan is vastly different to the more familiar 1998 version from Walt Disney. Unlike its Disney predecessor, this is not an animated movie; made in...

Cultivating the Mind of Love by Vietnamese Buddhist and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh (Thich Nhat Hanh) is a essentially a guide on how to love, according to the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, as it shows the way it is practiced. The book was first...

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is Martin McDonagh's third full-length feature film. It is also his first feature-length film to win an Academy Award (his 2004 short film, Six Shooter, won the Best Live Action Short Film Academy Award)....

Blackass is no doubt an exceptionally complex and unique book. However, it received exceedingly mixed -- and skewed slightly negative -- reviews. Michael Schaub of NPR called the book "audacious" but remarked that "Blackass, [al]though very good...

Kenneth Slessor is considered to be one of the first truly Australian poets, largely because he was a first-generation Australian, rather than a settler, or a transported prisoner, from England, as most of the well-known poets that went before him...

A Very Very Very Dark Matter (released in 2018) represents somewhat of a homecoming for playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh. For most of his career, McDonagh solely worked in theater. However, he has since released a number of films: his...

Scotland would seem like an unlikely place in which to set a science fiction story about an extra-terrestrial woman who preys on men; yet, this is the setting for Jonathan Glazer's 2013 fantasy movie that is very loosely adapted from Michel...

Olga Tokarczuk is a modern Polish writer, whose works are focused on human origin and place in the world. Questions of self-identity and self-recognition are rather keen in the modern world of globalization, and Olga Tokarczuk, as many other...

De Republica Anglorum was written by Sir Thomas Smith in 1562 during the time of his occupation as the ambassador to Queen Elizabeth in France. His job as ambassador was to describe and evaluate the “English social institutions, judicial system...

Although Sir Gowther could legitimately be considered a poem, it is more usually referred to as a tall-rhyme romance, consisting of twelve stanzas that read more like short paragraphs than actual poetic verses. Dating from the Middle Ages, it...

British literary giant Roald Dahl had an interesting heritage; born in Wales to Norwegian parents, Dahl was raised by his mother after his father's death. Despite his obvious literary genius, Dahl did not attend college after graduating from high...

Roxane Gay's Difficult Women is certainly an interesting book. Released in January 2017, this short story collection is a follow-up to her massively successful essay collection called Bad Feminist (which was released in 2014). Julia Fesenthal of...

At 404 pages, The Doctor Stories is a collection of handpicked short stories by Richard Selzer himself. It holds thirty years of his previous work, two new additions, and an introduction delving into his beginnings as a writer and the birth of his...

Originally published in 1974, Rituals of Surgery is Richard Selzer’s first collection of short stories. It indulges in the not-so-openly discussed perspective of surgical doctors and the experiences they go through when treating patients. The...

Over the course of his illustrious career, Stephen King has written more than a dozen bonafide classic novels. In fact, prior to the release of The Shining (his third book), he published two classics in the form of Carrie and 'Salem's Lot. The...

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that, while watching Hard Candy, "There is undeniable fascination in the situation as it unfolds... Seen as a film, seen as acting and direction, seen as just exactly how it unfolds on the screen, Hard Candy is...

One of MSNBC's most prominent talking heads, Maddow has never been one for holding back when it comes to expressing her opinions, or being gentle upon those who do not share them. In her 2019 book Blowout she explores her obsession with the issue...

In many ways, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man revolutionized the film industry and put superhero movies on the map. The film tells the origin story of Spider-Man, chronicling Peter Parker's life and the various hardships he experiences. Primarily, though...

"I want something to do." These are the first words in the narrative of Tribulation Periwinkle, the young protagonist of Hospital Sketches, and the autobiographic figure representing Louisa May Alcott. The book is, in fact, a compilation of four...

Over the course of his over 40 year career, Kurt Vonnegut wrote a number of books, many of which have become revered American classics. Sirens of Titan was the second of his many novels. A comedic science fiction story, most of Sirens of Titan...

If you are one of millions of children who over the years have been told to go outside and get some fresh air, you will be surprised to discover that this was actually an instruction with a sound scientific basis. Richard Louv penned this book in...

There is relatively little known about Middle English poet Thomas Hoccleve, whose career spanned most of the reign of King Henry IV.For much of this reign he held the office of Privy Seal, which was an honor, but also a cause for complaint for...

For a writer who has made such a profound impact upon the world literature scene as Saida Herzi, there is notoriously little information readily available for fans, critics, students, scholars or just some randomly typing letters into a search...

Thriller and horror novelist Joe Schreiber's foray into young adult fiction produced an entertaining handbook for young con artists everywhere. The book's protagonist, Will Shea, has been raised to be a con artist, and his entire life has hurtled...