The Secret Agent
What’s the book?
Everybody has read Heart of Darkness. You probably skimmed it in high school, or read the Spark Notes (or Clif’s Notes, since Spark Notes didn’t exist for many of you) and went on with your life. Enter LiteraryHuman. We are here to suggest a different book by Mr. Joseph Conrad, a work whose merits and modernist credentials have really been overshadowed by Joe’s other work, and the torrent of cries of “RACIST!” that have come in its backlash. With a cast of characters that includes Marxists, …

The Heat of the Day
What’s the book?
We apologize for our ineptness and general lateness in bringing you this fourth Book Worth a Look. Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day may be a novel of which, frankly, you have never heard. Bowen herself flew slightly under the American radar as an Anglo-Irish author of late modernism. Her relative underratedness, however, should not deter you from attempting a read that combines subtle psychological depth with a realistic portrayal of femininity within her protagonist’s upper-crust society life.
What’s it about?
We will only give you …

White Noise
What’s the book?
Our third Book Worth a Look is Don DeLillo’s White Noise, another 1985 novel and the book that won that year’s National Book Award: quite a year for literature was 1985! White Noise earned such high praise because of its relevant and altogether as-hilarious-as-it-is-recognizable saturation with the absurdity of the post-modern world. We recommend books that are often overlooked, usually because of their relative recency, and this masterpiece, and DeLillo’s first big hit, definitely fits the bill. In fact, perhaps the most compelling thing about this book …

Fifteen years.
That's how long it's been since the World Wide Web was created.
That's how long it's been since the Lorena Bobbitt incident shocked the country. And really scared adult males.
That's how long it's been since Doom (the first-person shooter that started it all) was released for personal computer.
and…
That's how long it's been since an American won the Nobel Prize in Literature. It happened in 1993 when Toni Morrison won as a still relatively young author after Beloved achieved international fame.
So why should you care? Because the Nobel Prize is basically the …

Brave New World
What’s the book?
Our inaugural Book Worth a Look is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a 20th century work of art that really appeals to fans of diverse tastes. You may remember it from high school as the book you didn’t read that was something like 1984 (that is really the point of the Book Worth a Look segment—giving you a collection of suggested reading that you may have missed earlier in life). And if that’s what you remember, you would be partially right. Its main characters Bernard, Lenina …