“When you call me that, SMILE!”

When the groundbreaking Western novel The Virginian by Owen Wister was first published on May 28, 1902, no one could have known that it would become so famous — or…

The bridge between the living and the dead . . .

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is the second novel by the great American writer Thornton Wilder (1897- 1975). The first edition of the book was published by the Albert…

The “pearl of great price”: an allegory for people who don’t want to win the lottery

Every once in a while, there’s a news story about somebody who won millions in a lottery and ended up being miserable as a result. I remember one from a…