reviews

Civil Disobedience: What the Essay is All About and Why You Should Read It  Author: Henry David Thoreau  Touted as an essay which promotes conscientiousness and decision from the citizens of a government which, like a machine, churns out injustices, Civil Disobedience is a pamphlet sized “book” that many of us first encountered in school, probably multiple times. I do recall, vaguely, being assigned to read it in college, sitting down to the very tiny copy of it I had, which was unusual in that it wasn’t shoved in as a part of an anthology of other works by Thoreau. I remember [...]

“Hey. Sometimes life is a shit flavored Popsicle.” Author: Carl Hiaasen Have you ever just wanted to act out? Ever fantasied about, say, an elaborate scheme of revenge, structured not only to rectify the injustice, but to right the world or at least change the opinion of that offending individual until they are just truly sorry? For all those moments where you longed to be absurd, borderline bi-polar Honey Santana fulfills that ridiculous inner need in us all. When Boyd Shreve, womanizing telemarketer and general louse, interrupts Honey’s dinner with a smarmy sales pitch, ending with an argument and some [...]

Transcendent and Tepid: Why You Should Read Walden and Then Never Read It Again Author: Henry David Thoreau Sometimes my determination to roll the dice and accept whatever classic work falls my way results in wonderful discoveries, sometimes in painful torments, and rarely in a transcendent state somewhere in-between pain and pleasure. As an English major in college, I had many assignments which positioned me to meet Walden excerpts – all of which I loathed. The prose was self-righteous, the advice given with a better-than-you aura of complete condescension, the material dull and lengthy. Imagine my chagrin when Thoreau and [...]