How riveting was Game of Thrones last night? We saw Bran have a dream, talk to Osha, and walk. We saw Jon talk to Mance Rayder and walk. Arya and her rag tags walk, get captured, talk to their captors, and then walk some more. Sansa eats lemon cakes (is that the only pastry in Westeros?) and talks to an old woman. By the time we got to see Joffrey look at fabric samples and explain the mechanics of a crossbow, I was already on the edge of...

The New York Times reports on a new study showing that high-achieving, working-class students are shunning elite schools (an unnamed list of “the 238 most selective colleges”) in favor of regional universities and community colleges. The study finds that many such students are unaware of these elite colleges, since they’re not likely to have met anyone who has attended such a place and, presumably, were not raised with the expectation...

So, when I wrote on reading drama, I was perhaps too optimistic. When I said that drama is a break from prose fiction and that it can be read more quickly, I didn’t take into account that drama, like, I suppose, all genres, can get repetitive. I made the mistake of reading only one author, a volume of six plays by Ibsen; they’re brilliant, but once you read one play about boring middle-class life, your first response is rarely to go out...

In his book The Cult of the Amateur, Andrew Keen gives a scathing indictment of the brave new world of the internet, arguing that user-created content is lowering the standard and preventing true talent from rising above the tide of garbage. His predictions are nothing if not apocalyptic: he pictures a world where newspapers go under to HuffPo, recording companies crushed by YouTube, and the end of literature brought about by blogs. Also, I...

I wrote in my last post about the new PBS special Shakespeare Uncovered, and because I walk the walk in addition to blogging the blog, the show inspired me to open Henry V. And I have on my hard drive—taking up space that could otherwise be occupied with pictures of my cat—the collected works of Shakespeare. After the novel I’m reading now, I plan to move on to a collection of Ibsen plays. But here’s the thing: I don’t write...

Today, in a rare mood to shake things up, I’ve decided to review something other than old books about writing, old books that only I care about. And, in a seemingly similar mood, PBS has decided to air something other than reruns of Doctor Who and is instead showing a series, Fridays at nine, about Shakespeare. So, in a way, I’m still writing about old books that only a handful of people care about, but I can have the illusion of...

The next few installments of Guide to the Guides will focus on style guides, and this post I’ll be discussing Spunk and Bite by Arthur Plotnik. I’m happy to report that this is one of the few books I’ve reviewed not meant for classroom use, which means there aren’t a thousand editions and doesn’t cost more than a normal paperback. The Great Parts It’s written by an editor/publisher—Plotnik has a long history as both a book...

Fear not, world: I have returned. I took a break from this blog because I was knee deep in MFA applications, but those are done. (And if any of you have any sway in any admissions committees, remember that the last name is spelled McCaul and that I’m awesome.) Sadly, I haven’t returned with any more originality, so for want of that I’m going to be continuing my Guide to the Guides series, going through the rest of my collection of...

I like to consider myself on the cutting edge of hating e-books; most people take pride in what they liked before it was popular, but I was one of the first to dislike something. I remember reading an article about the Kindle in a doctor’s office magazine (Time or something like that) before it even premiered and instantly thinking, “I have found my arch nemesis.” I complained about them ever since that day. In my junior year of...

Now that the presidential debates are over, I can finally check Facebook again. Well, not really, since no one ever really stops checking Facebook, but at least now I can stop rolling my eyes with every other status update. It’s not that they’re all bad—I never would have learned about the “binders full of women” gaffe or last night’s crack about bayonets without someone’s snarky post—but, in politics, good intentions...