StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups

This week on StoryWeb: Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of whic…

This week on StoryWeb: Dolly Parton’s song “Coat of Many Colors.”

Call it maudlin or sentimental, but Dolly Parton’s song “Coat of Many Colors” is undeniably an American classic, so much so that it w…

This week on StoryWeb: Alex Haley’s book Roots.

In January 1977 when I was sixteen, I joined 130 million Americans to watch the television miniseries based on Alex Haley’s book Roots: The Saga of an …

This week on StoryWeb: Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “In the Waiting Room.”

I’ve featured Elizabeth Bishop previously on StoryWeb. “The Moose” – set in Bishop’s home province of Nova Scotia – is one of my …

This week on StoryWeb: Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest.

Really, has there ever been a play funnier than Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest?

No matter how you experie…

This week on StoryWeb: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah.

Nigerian Chinua Achebe was the first African writer to publish a major novel in English – a novel in the colonial master’s language…

This week on StoryWeb: Langston Hughes’s poem “Theme for English B.”

Oh, how I love this poem! It packs so much into a short space. Published on its own in 1949, it was included in Langston Hughes’s …

This week on StoryWeb: Langston Hughes’s book of poems Montage of a Dream Deferred.

I play it cool

And dig all jive

That’s the reason

I stay alive.

My motto

As I live and learn

Is dig and be dug in r…

This week on StoryWeb: Herman Melville’s novella Billy Budd, Sailor.

While “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and Moby-Dick get a lot of attention (and are taught frequently in high school and college classes…

This week on StoryWeb: Allen Ginsberg’s poem “A Supermarket in California.”

In so many ways – both in his poetry and in his interviews – Allen Ginsberg made clear that he owed a great debt to Walt Wh…

This week on StoryWeb: Gloria Anzaldúa’s poem “I Had To Go Down.”

Gloria Anzaldúa was a groundbreaking, perhaps even groundclaiming theorist and poet. She is by far best known for her 1987 book, Bord…

This week on StoryWeb: E.M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India.

When I was a senior in high school, my favorite English teacher, Mr. Alwood, agreed to do an independent study with me. He selected fou…

This week on StoryWeb: Derek Bowman’s book Tam: The Life and Death of a Dog.

For Mom, in honor of her birthday

Chanonry Point.

The very name of this tiny peninsula in northern Scotland evokes fond me…

This week on StoryWeb: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical Hamilton.

Like many, many Americans, I am entirely and utterly swept up in the cultural phenomenon of our time – meaning I can’t get enoug…

This week on StoryWeb: John Hiatt’s songs “Feels Like Rain” and “Drive South.”

For Jim, in celebration of our years together

Later this week, Jim and I will celebrate twelve years together, ten years…

This week on StoryWeb: Edith Wharton’s novel The House of Mirth.

I want to close out my multi-week focus on the Gilded Age with a consideration of Edith Wharton’s novel The House of Mirth. Where Jaco…

This week on StoryWeb: Theodore Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie.

In 1899, as the soon-to-be-novelist Theodore Dreiser was starting work on Sister Carrie, he was also working on two articles about Ameri…

This week on StoryWeb: Stephen Crane’s article “An Experiment in Misery.”

Many Americans know Stephen Crane as the author of the Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, which made Crane famous at …

This week on StoryWeb: Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs The Terminal and Winter, Fifth Avenue.

In the 1890s, as Alfred Stieglitz was beginning his career, photographers were fighting for artistic recog…

This week on StoryWeb: Jacob Riis’s book How the Other Half Lives.

Photojournalism can be an extraordinarily powerful way to raise the public’s concern about extreme situations. An early pioneer in t…