Writers – Page 5 – Interesting Literature

10 Great Christopher Hitchens Quotes on Literature and Writing

The finest sourced quotes from Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was one of the most popular – and divisive – writers of his day. Born in England, he moved to the United States in his early thirties, and lived in Washington D. C. for the rest of his life. He is often celebrated for his witty one-liners and bon mots, so here we’ve gathered together ten of his best quotations about literature, being a writer, and related subjects.

If you’re a self-employed writer, there’s a tendency always to feel guilty any time you’re not working. – ‘In Depth with Christopher Hitchens’, C-SPAN, 2007

I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information. – Hitch-22: A Memoir

Jane Austen Adaptations Throughout History

By Spencer Blohm

The body of work produced by Jane Austen remains as relevant today as the time period in which it was written. Her keen observations of human nature and human conventions as portrayed through the lens of her times have made her works timeless. And of course, her acute ability to satirize those same conventions has preserved their lasting bite. Over the last century, numerous film adaptations have been created based on Austen’s novels – some faithful to the source material, others perhaps less so, but wherever there is a trace of Austen wit there is always a plot worth following.

Five Fascinating Facts about Rousseau

Fun facts about the life and work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, author of Confessions

1. His Confessions effectively invented modern autobiography. Before Rousseau, not many public figures were prepared to spill the beans about the intimate details of their private lives – their regrets, their desires, their deepest and darkest secrets – but Rousseau bared all, or very nearly all, in his Confessions.

10 Rivals of Sherlock Holmes Everyone Should Read

The best fictional detectives who were contemporaries of Sherlock Holmes

If you’re a fan of Conan Doyle‘s Sherlock Holmes stories, or the BBC TV series Sherlock, you may well be looking for other great detectives from the golden era of the detective short story to discover and enjoy. Here’s our list of ten of the greatest fictional detectives who solved mysteries and brought criminals to justice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the same time as Conan Doyle’s sleuth was lodging at 221B Baker Street. We are indebted to David Stuart Davies’ excellent introduction to Shadows of Sherlock Holmes (Wordsworth Classics) for some of the following information about these authors and detectives, many of whose names have long since fallen into obscurity. We’ve also added a few suggestions of our own. Davies’ collection is a great compendium of these forgotten gems, including some of the best stories featuring the detectives listed below – perfect reading for the fan of detective fiction.

10 Great Words about Words

The best words to describe language-related experiences, reading, and other related phenomena

Logos is the very first word of the Gospel of St John: ‘In the beginning was the Word’. (Logos means ‘word’.) And ‘logos’, it turns out, has given us a raft of great wordy words – word-related terms which describe our infatuation, and frustration, with language. Nomen, the Latin for ‘name’, has also given us some great terms, so we’ve included one of those here as well, in this post outlining the best words about language or related phenomena: reading, names, and the like. We hope you enjoy them.

Alogotransiphobia denotes the fear of being caught on public transport with nothing to read. The word hasn’t found its way into dictionaries yet. It was coined by a novelist in 1992, according to Paul Dickson in his informative book of word-trivia, Authorisms: Words Wrought by Writers.

A logodaedalus is someone who is cunning with words; it was first used by poet and playwright Ben Jonson in 1611.