The World Was Dying, By Alfred Jones

The main theme in the book, The Dark is Rising, is obviously the conflict between the dark and light. It is one of the many suspenseful fantasy books about the battle between good and evil, Susan Cooper wrote about the dark, light, and the mystical powers.

Jared Diamond is a world renowned scientist, author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and currently a geography professor at UCLA. Of his six books published, we will be looking at the last chapter of his fourth book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In this book Diamond utilizes the comparative method to find resemblance in past societal collapses with our current society. In the chapter entitled, "The World as Polder: What Does it Mean to Us Today," Diamond points out that there are indeed many parallels between past and present societies and that our modern day society is currently on a path of self destruction , through examples such as globalization and the interdependency of each country.

When readers read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, they are taken the World State, a dystopian society where the citizens are attracted to material goods, immediate happiness, and drugs that distract themselves from reality. Do Readers begin to wonder if the society we live in today become a dystopian society? While comparing societies, we begin to realize that our society is almost identical to the World State. Our societies are very similar, but we will never become a dystopian society like the World State, for we are not controlled by material goods, immediate happiness and drugs, we are controlled by our emotions.

“What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” (p. 28). In the scientific novel Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince, self-acclaimed “Medical Maverick” Dr. Moalem makes in-depth analyses of current human diseases that, ironically, may have led to the survival of mankind in the past. He presents a novel concept that greatly contradicts what have been universally accepted beliefs surrounding biology and the process of human evolution for a long time. With the use of myriad scientific studies and research, he formulates surprising theories about a positive correlation between disease and humanity. Moalem narrates the scientific world’s findings that strongly exemplify his assertions, however arbitrary they may seem at first. Three of the diseases that he examines, hemochromatosis, Type 1 diabetes, and favism, could have been particularly useful for resistance against other illnesses and survival in a historically harsh environment.

Leaving the comforts of the first world, Jessica Alexander abandons her job, fiancé, family, and home to venture into the misleading volunteer work of Humanitarian aid. Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid by Jessica Alexander is a conglomeration of stories that are written from Jessica’s memory. “It is a true account based on [Jessica’s] best recollections of the events and [her] experiences.”.

Darkness at Noon, written by British novelist Arthur Koestler in 1940, is a criticism of Stalinism and the methods used by the Communist Party in the USSR. The novel was set in 1938 during the Stalinist Great Purge and Moscow show trials. Even though the story depicts actual occurrences, it does not specifically name either Russia or the USSR, but the characters do have Russian names while other generic terms are used to depict individuals and associations. For instance, the Soviet government is alluded to as "the Party" and Nazi Germany is alluded to as "the Dictatorship." Joseph Stalin, a terrorizing dictator, is represented by "Number One." The novel is a strong and moving picture of a Communist revolutionary caught up in the terror

The world is in a constant state of change, today’s decisions will affect the future of all species large and small, defining the ways in which society will continue to live. The essay “No New Worlds” written by Dr. Adrian Forsyth explores ideas associated with ever changing populations and states of the world. The essay describes the existence of humankind by their impacts on the surrounding environments. The reader is then introduced to the implications our world faces if these problems are not solved and additionally steps to solving these issues. Thus, both men and women need to take action to help or pay the consequences and protect the only world we have, planet Earth.

A hero is not only someone with superpowers but can be anyone. It can be anyone like you or me. A hero is someone who is willing to stand up for other people. The book, A Lesson Before Dying, takes place in Louisiana and is about an innocent Black man convicted and sent to the electric chair. In the story there are real people that Ernest Gaines alludes to. Ernest Gaines makes an allusion to Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson. Beside these two, Mamie Till also stepped up and was audacious. They were all fearless and gave hope to many other people because of what they were doing. These heroes took a stand against society and changed the world for everyone.

When the jury and judges awarded Elizabeth Fenn the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book, Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, their citation described the book as "an engrossing, original narrative showing the Mandans, a Native American tribe in the Dakotas, as a people with a history."

Ross Gay’s book Against Which, portrays his poetry to readers allowing them to gain understanding of the cruel world that one lives in. Moreover, the unusual brutalities that people are inevitable confronted with in life. The common denominators within Gay’s poems such as violence, love, fear, and loss allows the reader to visualize characters’ transformation within his poems. In a world of calamity, Gay has created poems that portray the corporal conforming to gender and sex but also human development. Using a reader-response criticism lens, I will be demonstrating my interpretation of Ross Gay’s poems and the meaning that I believe to be a common interpretation of his work. Within, Gay’s poems, “It Starts at Birth” and Angels Out of Reach” one is able to see a pattern of human transformation. By experiencing pain, love, loss, fear, and wisdom one is able to see Gay’s characters evolve through the narrators and readers gaze. In doing so, one is able to reflect on Gay’s poems and gain wisdom themselves.

In Where the World Ended, Daphne Berdahl explores via ethnographic study the creation and evolution of identities in the town of Kella. Located within the 500-meter Schutzstreifen along the Grenze (the inter-German border during the Cold War) residents of Kella experienced strict surveillance from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and lived with additional regulations. Berdahl presents Kella as floating between the East and West; however, the impenetrability of the inter-German border from 1952 to 1989 instituted Eastern economic and cultural practices in Kella until the entire GDR experienced the fall of socialism. In this paper, I will demonstrate that Berdahl operates under the flawed assumption that Kella’s geographic location within

There are many benefits to reading books. The benefits are that people can understand their own lives, empathize with other people, and illuminate issues of morality. Literature helps people understand their own lives. In the biography While the World Watched by Carolyn Maull McKinstry. It details the 16th street Baptist church bombing that occurred on September 15, 1963.

Published in 1997, Marie Howe’s anthology of poems, What the Living Do was written as an elegy to her brother, John, who passed away due to AIDS. Howe’s anthology is written without metaphor to document the loss she felt after her brother’s death. Although What the Living Do is written as an anthology, this collection allows for individual poems to stand alone but also to work together to tell an overarching story. Using the poetic devices of alliteration, enjambment, repetition and couplets, Howe furthers her themes of gender and loss throughout her poems in her anthology.

“In a Dark time” by Theodore Roethke gives a retrospect into the inner turmoil’s of finding oneself through a haze of doubts in till reaching a moment of clarity. Each section of the poem describes a different emotion, or inner thought that spirals from fear of death, to emotions of desire. The use of imagery between nature and uncertainties of the narrator give a glimpse into Roethke’s own mind during the time he wrote this poem. Without hundreds of pages Roethke created a poem that connects readers to their own self-doubts and struggles of finding ones way again.

I woke up surrounded by a thick fog. It obscured my vision and hindered my breathing. I couldn’t remember where I was or how I had gotten there. It was eerily quiet…