Topic: Mark Twain
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A literary road trip through New England
Take a trip through historic New England and visit the homesteads of famous literary figures.
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12 best quotes about writing
Twelve famous authors talk about writing.
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10 snapshots of New York from celebrated diaries
From 'New York Diaries' edited by Teresa Carpenter, 10 stories of New York City through the centuries.
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Mark Twain and 29 other great pseudonyms
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Mark Twain: Top 5 world travel quotes
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Mark Twain: Top 5 world travel quotes
Today is the 176th birthday of Mark Twain, or as his parents knew him, Samuel L. Clemens. Twain is best known for his American fiction, including “Tom Sawyer,” but he was also an intrepid traveler and travel-writer who paved the way for the Bill Brysons of our day. In “Innocents Abroad" he wrote, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” Here are five delightful travel quotes from Twain's writings:
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If Mark Twain were alive today, he'd be reading this on an iPad
Google is honoring the 176th birthday of Mark Twain with one of its trademark doodles. Consummate technophile that he was, Twain would no doubt have appreciated it.
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Mark Twain: 10 reasons we love him
It's the 176th birthday of one of the most iconic of figures in US history. In honor of the day that Samuel Clemens was born, here are 10 reasons why we love the great American author known as Mark Twain.
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Why Mark Twain would be booted from Facebook
A Google doodle gave Mark Twain a warm birthday salute on Wednesday. But Facebook would have given Mark Twain a hard time. It's company policy, Mr. Clemens.
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Mark Twain quotes: 10 favorites on his birthday
William Faulkner called him “…the first truly American writer.” Ernest Hemingway declared that all American writing comes from “Huckleberry Finn,” and “there has been nothing as good since." And Norman Mailer said “Huck Finn” stands up “page for page” to the “best modern American novels.” Wednesday marks the 176th anniversary of the birth of the matchless Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain. His genius lay in his distinctive ability to convey profound wisdom and profane wit in the same breath. Here, in tribute to the man Faulkner called the “father of American literature,” are 10 quotes from Mark Twain.
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Bumps in the night
Hearing the prolonged creaking sound and occasional clump, an imaginative boy surveyed his options.
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Six ways the rich really do get richer
“Class warfare:” Lately this old term has been taking on new life as political theater, a way to rebuke Wall Street protestors, and, predictably, fodder for Fox News. According to Google, in just the last month alone, 3,870 articles have been published containing these words. Another way to express the concept of rich vs. not-so-rich is the expression, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” It’s been around for a long time: According to Wikipedia, William Henry Harrison went there in 1840: “I believe and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.” I’m not going to take a stand on either side of the “class warfare” debate by saying that the rich do or don’t take unfair advantage of the rest of society. This is America, where we all have the potential to become rich. But I will say this unequivocally: The rich do get richer, or at least have the potential to. Let’s count the ways:
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Grant’s Final Victory
Charles Bracelen Flood offers a fascinating coda to a remarkable life in this brisk, well-told history of the final months and days of Ulysses S. Grant.
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'Prohibition' – so much more than gangsters and flappers
This Sunday (8 to 10 p.m. EDT) Ken Burns turns his prodigious research efforts and illuminating camerawork loose on America's failed attempt to sober up.
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A century later, a Massachusetts library lifts its ban on a Mark Twain short story
Just in time for Banned Books Week, the Charlton, Mass., library reversed its ban on Twain's story "Eve's Diary."
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Fall books: 20 nonfiction titles you don't want to miss
From the energy crisis to The Doors, from Hitler’s Germany to Rin Tin Tin, here are the nonfiction titles that have readers buzzing this fall.
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Jackie Chan lives, but so do celebrity death hoaxes
Jackie Chan: A Facebook Page proclaiming that Jackie Chan had died of a heart attack on Aug. 17 caused a stir. But the fake news was also old news.
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Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms, by Carmela Ciuraru
Carmela Ciuraru takes a playful look at the history of pen names and the reasons authors use them.
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Pinkwashing: Another gay Middle Easterner who isn't on the level?
Move over Thomas McMaster. You've got competition from 'Marc,' who claims he's an LGBT activist jilted by the Gaza flotilla.
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Golf summit: Obama and Boehner win $2 each
No word on what the president and the House speaker talked about during their golf summit Saturday. But Obama and Boehner shared a cart. And they outshot Team Biden-Kasich.
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Monitor Breakfast Q&A: Newt Gingrich
After reassuring reporters "the reports of my campaign's death were highly exaggerated," former House Speaker and current candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination Newt Gingrich told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast that, among other things, Republicans needed to win the debate over Medicare or risk creating "for Obama the Harry Truman moment of coming back and winning by being against us."
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Opinion: After Mississippi floods and Joplin tornado, some hard-hitting geography lessons
Amid a spate of natural disasters, the latest crisis on the Mississippi has reminded Americans that the river is not merely a Twain-era historical footnote, but a vital instrument of modern commerce and a powerful force in draining, nourishing – and sometimes flooding – a large swath of the US.
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Newt Gingrich quotes Mark Twain: 'Reports of my campaign's death are exaggerated'(VIDEO)
Newt Gingrich, borrowing from Mark Twain at a Monitor breakfast on Monday, said his presidential campaign can recover from a rocky start. He frames himself as an idea man who can go toe to toe with Obama.
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Political polarization of climate change is on the rise
It's time to find a good way to reconsider whether carbon cap and trade would eliminate jobs
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In tonight's meteor shower, watch falling debris from Halley's Comet
Halley's Comet won't be back for half a century, but tonight Earth will move through some of the debris the comet left behind, creating a spectacular meteor shower – if you live far enough south.
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How Osama bin Laden's death sparked a fake Martin Luther King quote
A Facebook user's message about Osama bin Laden's death quickly mutated into a misattributed quote by Martin Luther King, showing us all how quickly the Internet can generate an urban legend.
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Fort Sumter cannons sound again: the Civil War 150 years later
Fort Sumter marked the start of the Civil War, with Confederates shelling it on April 12, 1861. Today, the cannon rolls still reverberate in a country that remains at peace, but torn by ideological divides.
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Reader recommendation: Autobiography of Mark Twain
Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.
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Bestselling books the week of 3/31/11, according to IndieBound*
What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
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Bestselling books the week of 3/24/11, according to IndieBound*
What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
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