What Your Favorite American Author Says About You

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In his best-selling novel High Fidelity, Nick Hornby asserts that what a person likes (books, movies, music, etc.) is more important that what a person is like. No need to get to know someone well, observe her in a variety of situations and truly judge her character; no, all anyone needs to do is find out which actors, authors, musicians and other artists a person likes to truly understand her character and determine if she could be a potential match for friendship or romance.

Whether or not anyone should actually take stock in this theory, it's fun to think about what a person's preferences indicate about her personality. Below, some possible clues into a person's psyche based on her favorite American author.

Mark Twain: this person has a great sense of humor and is willing to overlook some pretty blatant racism. She probably finds rakish youngsters (like Twain's Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn) appealing, and may or may not be game for an impromptu rafting trip.

Ernest Hemingway: Hemingway lovers are either fans of his work or fans of the man. Fans of his work admire the simple strength of his language and his vivid descriptions of various European locales. People who admire the man are probably drunks.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: this person rejects Puritanical ideals and doesn't adhere to moral absolutes. His lack of judgment may be refreshing, but find out his views on monogamy before letting things get too serious.

Arthur Miller: this one can be tricky. Miller's plays, particularly The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, are extraordinarily good, but also have a somewhat morbid bent to them. Find out if this person admires Miller as a skilled dramatist or an acute observer of the cruelty of mankind.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Find out if this person has read Fitzgerald beyond The Great Gatsby. There's nothing wrong with loving Gatsby, but no one should declare an author to be his or her favorite unless he or she has read at least 3 of that author's books.

Unless, of course, that author is Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird was her only novel, but it's so great it elevates Lee to a reasonable candidate for the title of anyone's favorite American author, or favorite author of any nationality.

Edith Wharton: an excellent choice. This person is a reader. Anyone who can get past Ethan Frome, the high school English teacher's favorite form of torture, and give novels like The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence a chance will not be deterred by something like a Dave Matthews Band CD collection or closet addiction to The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Robert Frost: This could be an excellent choice as well, but there's a litmus test that must accompany that ruling. Ask the person what she thinks of "The Road Not Taken." If she thinks it a beautiful poem about the importance of not taking the easy way in life, this person does not get Frost at all. If she rolls her eyes and says she hates when people quote it to emphasize the important of blazing one's own trail, then she's a trust Frost fan.

Paul Thomson is an avid reader of English Literature. His areas of expertise include Crucible, To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn. In his spare time, he loves to participate in online literature forums and promote reading for youth.

Weird Fiction: What Is It?

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Weird Fiction had its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. While it is related to horror, it oftentimes incorporates fantastical themes that are decidedly outside the boundaries of what most people would understand as horror. It can sometimes horrify, but the stories are typically crafted to elicit a sense of wonder in the reader and, quite often, it has some of the themes of science fiction and Gothic fiction woven into it.

The Big Names

HP Lovecraft is the most well-known author of Weird Fiction. Lovecraft's stories are remarkable for the author's eloquent language and for the fact that, unlike many horror stories, his tales almost never had a moral angle to them. In most cases, his protagonists were being pursued by or deliberately seeking out something that was far beyond their ability-or any human's ability-to fully comprehend, and that provided the horror element of the story. While horror, as a genre, is usually about eliciting feelings of terror, Weird Fiction seeks to cause a sense of wonder in the reader, oftentimes mixed with a good deal of dread.

While Lovecraft and his sinister Necronomicon-a fictional grimoire that appeared again and again in his stories-are household names, the world of Weird Fiction is rich with talented and imaginative authors. Some of the names that helped to define this genre include:
Algernon BlackwoodRobert W. ChambersLord DunsanyWilliam Hope HodgsonArthur MachenWalter de la MareMR JamesClark Ashton Smith

Despite the fact that Weird Fiction is mostly associated with the late 1800s and early 1900s, there are still some writers working in this genre today. Some of the most well-known horror movies and novels in the world were heavily influenced by these authors. For example, the Chambers book "The King in Yellow" contains four stories that center on a fictional play that drives anyone who sees or reads it mad. This plot device has been used in a number of successful horror films, with the play being replaced by a cursed book or movie that drives people mad.

Exploring Weird Fiction

A great deal of Weird Fiction appeared in the form of short stories. Lovecraft was a frequent contributor to Weird Tales magazine, and there are some reprints of those issues available. The originals can fetch a very high price. Short story collections from these authors, and many more, are still widely available. Many of these stories are in the public domain, which means they can be downloaded legally, at no charge, from numerous different sites.

Read reviews about classic works of Weird Fiction, Gothic Fiction and Horror Fiction at Antique Horrors!

Brave New World Gives Sleep-Teaching a Bad Name

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You may have experienced a phenomenon known as 'sleep-teaching' in some of your classes. In your case, however, this probably involved your forehead drooping and gradually coming to rest against your desk as your teacher droned on and on from the front of the classroom about the importance of doing well on your SAT. In Huxley's Brave New World, the term means something a little different.

In this dystopia (just think of it as a 'dysfunctional utopia' - if you need to look up 'utopia,' then this mnemonic probably won't work for you), human beings are cloned and raised inside carefully controlled environments in which their brains are filled with precisely the kind and amount of information the government wants to be in there. By using this process of sleep-teaching, or 'hypnopaedia' (not to be confused with wikihypnopaedia, which will be a handy-dandy reference resource in about 50 years), the leaders of the World State are able to engineer an assembly line of docile and obedient workers who live to serve them and their purpose. Sound familiar? Oh, no it doesn't. Don't be so dramatic.

Anyway, in this speculated future society, there is an emphasis on loveless sexual activity and advancement of the sciences, and the elimination of such things as religion, emotion and individuality. Basically, the powers that be are conditioning their population to become a gang of drones who will theoretically drive the world forward as a whole - a world in which any measure of personal enjoyment, pleasure or ambition is disallowed. Like how your dad wouldn't let you take the car out last weekend. Yeah - now it sounds familiar.

While these faux-events are not something you're likely to read about in your AP US History class (please contact us if they are, because your teacher probably needs to be placed under immediate observation), novels about futuristic dystopias are almost always written to serve as a very real warning. Huxley feared that the imaginary world he created would not long remain imaginary, and by writing this novel, he was imploring us to change our ways before it was too late.

Of course, you were not literally grown inside a bottle and brainwashed, no matter what you may tell yourself. But, although you should certainly respect your teachers and make a concerted effort in your classes, it is important for all of us to question the manner of instruction in this country. What is being taught to us and why? Are we merely being molded into just another cog to fit into the machine, or do our educators genuinely wish for us to learn and grow as well-rounded people and active thinkers? For more on this, please see Shmoop's section on 'Why You Should Read Everything on this Site and Instantly Accept and Believe All of It without Thinking Critically.'

Paul Thomson is an avid reader of English Literature. His areas of expertise include Brave New World, AP US History, and PSAT. In his spare time, he loves to participate in online literature forums and promote reading for youth.