The Wayside School trilogy of books is, as far as I’m concerned, a seminal masterpiece of comedy and kidlit. They operate on a surreal, childlike level of logic that still speaks to my brain today. More than that, the Wayside School books are honest portrayals of the confusion and paradoxes involved with being a child.…
“Where the hell are they?” “The appropriate question is, when the hell are they?” -Marty & Doc, Back to the Future If you’ve read many of my articles here on EarnThis, there’s a good chance you already knew that Brian Likes this one. Of the hundred entries in my Film Favorites Countdown, fully 10% include…
It has a title that sounds like a pulpy radio serial from the 1930s. Its premise — two cousins team up to create a comic book centered around a superhero called The Escapist — hardly sounds special or deep. And yet, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is probably the finest novel I’ve ever…
This past April, I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo, an online writing challenge to set and meet a monthly writing word count goal with the support and encouragement of some fellow “campers.” My group — or “cabin” — of writers included several fascinating people and talented writers I’m now happy to call my friends. One of my…
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply flawed novel. The central high school romance, between a gawky freshman guy and a popular senior girl, is implausible wish-fulfillment. Its conflicts are often short and choppy, and the plot is driven by a laundry list of hot-button adolescence issues: suicide, abuse, drugs, closeted homosexuality, etc.…
Shortly after we got married, Katy and I were reading a whole lot and started a “book blog” called Readers by Night. It’s been inactive for about a year now, but we’ll bring it back some day. Promise. Anyways, one of my dreams has always been to own and read all of the Newbery Winners,…
When I put together my very first draft of the ranking of the Top 100, I had the book Spectacular Now just a few slots out of the ranking. The movie had just come out, but I figured it wouldn’t really change my opinion of The Spectacular Now as a whole. Then I finally got…
“I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.” – Dr. Mary Malone Well, this one snuck up on me. From September 2012 through September 2013, I…
We here at EarnThis are no strangers to the power of books. Of all the media we consume, books rely most heavily on our creative faculties: Each reader is charged with conjuring the sights and sounds suggested by the written words. The book serves as our blueprint as we construct a story’s world in our…
Every 25 entries, I’m going to take a break listing my favorite things to talk about something I don’t like: Wow, way to pick a low-hanging fruit, right? Still, I feel that I am qualified to comment on the badness Twilight. Not only have I read the first book and watched the first movie, but…