Category: Great Writers

The Mexican beer, Dos Equis, has reportedly experienced over 20% growth since launching their hilarious marketing campaign featuring a mature, bearded man who “is often questioned by police just because they find him interesting” and who’s “blood smells like cologne.” The inspiration for this contemporary advertising marvel is clearly Ernest Hemingway (who incidentally later in…

William Faulkner is indisputably one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. He was awarded virtually every honor a writer can receive during a lifetime (Nobel, Pulitzer, National Book Award, etc.) and his place in the American literary canon has held firm as we approach the centennial of his entry into the world…

John Steinbeck is arguably the greatest American novelist of the twentieth century. In “John Steinbeck: A Biography,” the great author’s life and times are dramatically chronicled by the magnificent (although sometimes pretentious) Jay Parini, a writer and professor of literature at Middlebury College in Vermont. I picked up “John Steinbeck” immediately after reading Parini’s deft…

Who really wrote Shakespeare? It’s a question that’s been asked literally for centuries, sometimes by thoughtful intellectuals, but most often by those with a limited knowledge of literature and a strong predisposition to conspiracy theories. In this book, “Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?” (2020) by distinguished Columbia University literature professor James Shapiro, the author seeks…