A Brief History On December 16, 1901, British artist and conservationist Beatrix Potter self-published the book that would launch her literary career, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, a book that would sell 45 million copies. (Note: Number of copies sold and ranking among various best selling lists vary by source. The initial success of the book led to it being published by an established publisher a year later.) Peter Rabbit would end up as perhaps the 10th best selling Children’s Book of all time, and around the 35th best selling book of any type in history. Ah, but Potter was…
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A Brief History On November 14, 1851, author Herman Melville published his greatest book, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. Certainly the best known novel concerning whales or a whale, Moby-Dick has not only stood the test of time as a novel, but has also generated several movies and provided numerous cultural references. The first line of Moby-Dick, “Call me Ishmael” is one of the best known opening lines of any novel. Today, we explore four of the Greatest Stories about Whales. What stories would you add to the list? (Either real life or fiction.) See our previous article, “The Real Moby…
A Brief History On November 8, 1901, people once again proved that human beings are willing to riot over just about anything. This time it happened in Greece and was precipitated by the publication of the Gospel of Matthew in a translation from Latin into the modern Greek vernacular (demotic Greek). Known as “Black Thursday,” November 8, 1901 was the climax of the Gospel Riots and 8 of the rioters were killed. (We have previously published numerous articles about riots, so if you are interested in checking out some of these ridiculous and sometimes deadly events, please use the search…
A Brief History On October 4, 2018, we are still recovering from the eye-candy comic book film fest that is Venom, the latest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We went to review the film with reservations based on rumbles of previous reviewers having expressed less than glowing tales of the film. We heard that 30 minutes or more had been cut from the final print, leaving a choppy and disjointed movie. NOT TRUE! Venom flows logically and seamlessly and features Tom Hardy, one of our favorite actors of today. Plenty of eye candy comic book like special effects and…
A Brief History On September 18, 2018, apropos to nothing in particular, we take the opportunity to once again discuss the disgusting English language! Previously, we started the discussion on our article dated September 29, 1975, “What is Up With The English Language?” and today we add to the discussion by addressing some troubling particular uses and misuses of words and phrases. As always, please tell us what you disagree with in this article or better yet, your own pet peeves about the use and alleged misuse of English! (BTW, we are well aware of the liberties this author sometimes…
