Few books have the ability to astound readers with their portrayal of austere social conventions and ludicrous mores as Jane Austen’s masterpiece Pride and Prejudice does. Written a good many decades ago in a time that seems so far removed from ours that we question the logic behind wanting to read it in the first place, this 400-page novel is considered a novel of manners whose simple plot exposes more than the romantic story which it is clothed in would have readers believe.  

Nadine Gordimer -- An Intruder That Dratted ... errm ... Enigmatic Ending           So I said to myself one day, “When are you going to sit down and deal with what you fear the most – not being able to come up with a plausible interpretation for the “incident” or ending to Gordimer’s short story “An Intruder” that wouldn’t make readers laugh their socks off?”           That dratted ending. It escaped me the first time I read the story, then again the second and third time, till I finally got pen and paper and jotted down all the facts in a manner that Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot would never have had the idiocy to acquiesce to, given their superior powers of recollection. At any rate, seeing the facts before me in note form did make certain words stand out above all else, enabling me to draw conclusions about what Gordimer may have intended for the reader to deduc...

I've loved books ever since I can remember. They're the only thing I've consciously made a choice to collect. I love how they smell, how the pages feel, the different textures of their covers and the way they look as they stand, motley-colored and neatly arranged on bookshelves. If I hadn't become a teacher, I'd work in a library or a bookstore, such is the extent of my obsession. My love of books is so great that I can't imagine why others don't understand their importance.  This is what brought me to write this post, in fact. A few weeks ago, I'd seen a question posted by someone online (no doubt a desperate student who was assigned the question by a teacher) asking how Literature instructs, and wondered why on earth anyone would ask such a self-explanatory query. After all, the reason I revere books doesn't merely come from the satisfaction I get as I turn pages over or capture the scent of a book the minute I open its cover. I've always...

What will the earth look like in 2050?  Predicting the future is believed to be the domain of shamans, soothsayers, astromancers, druids who practiced divination by reading animal entrails, and a myriad other prophetic communal leaders. Predicting the future of our planet in non-spiritual terms, however, is the domain of any logical being willing to look at facts and drawing objective conclusions from them. In my view, by 2050, changes will become evident in areas such as the environment, energy and natural resources, demographics and technology. Ultimately, this will have an impact on our attitudes and behavior as human beings. Reading Ulrich Eberl's 2011 book Life in 2050 is not a prerequisite to understanding and making assumptions about how things will unfold for our environment. Invasive production practices and lax legislature in the already dominant countries , namely BRICS, or in those set to dominate the world of manufacture (the N-11) are bound to ravage both ...