reviews

The Avengers Rebooted: Original VS Modern Interpretations Author(s): Mark Miller and Bryan Hitch As a book loving fiend with a predilection for television only when it involves terrible zombie B-movies, I came to the Marvel Universe quite late – as in several months ago. Brought to the television by my boyfriend, an avid fan of Marvel movies and (somewhat) of the associated comics, I sat through Captain America, Iron Man, Spiderman, the Hulk, and even the most recent movie in theaters. I expected not to care much for it all, but was rather surprised by the mixture of humor with action and irresistible character [...]

What's so funny? Author:  Jim Holt Why is it funny when Will Ferrell plays a cowbell in an ill-fitting brown shirt? How is Bob Newhart able to make you laugh with just a deadpan look on his face?  The answers to these questions are considerably more complicated than you might think.  But essayist and part time philosopher Jim Holt isn’t afraid to tackle the big questions, exploring the origins of humor in Stop Me If You’ve Heard This. Both cute and funny... Dividing his search into two sections, Holt – an avid joke collector over the years – [...]

Classics Revisited... Author:  Michael Cunningham Why are fairy tales so enduring? Tantalizingly magical and inhabited by all sorts of mysterious creatures, they frequently present human themes and challenges in an entertainingly digestible manner.   But as they are told and retold – often simplified to make them easier for children to appreciate – they can lose much of their vitality, becoming trite and stale. Given how well known many of these stories have become over the centuries, it takes a measure of literary boldness to completely rework them.    But Michael Cunningham – author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Hours – [...]