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Today's genre books are full of future dystopias, which only have one weakness: teenagers. And everybody knows that most dystopias are kind of contrived. But here are 10 lessons from real-life rebellions against repressive regimes, that we wish the creators of fictional dystopias would pay attention to. 10. The Enemy of Your Enemy Is Not Your Friend [snip] 9. The Top Guy Isn't Always the Problem [snip] 8. Sometimes Making Concessions Leads To Rebellion [snip] 7. Two Downtrodden Groups Will Usually Be Fighting Each Other [snip] 6. Never Neglect the Practicalities [snip] 5. New Regimes Come With Crazy Ideology [snip]...

It is one of the tragedies of recent cultural history that, thanks to Mel Gibson's preposterous movie "Braveheart," the world knows more about William Wallace's short-lived Scottish rebellion of 1296-97 than about Robert the Bruce. For it was Bruce who, after 18 years of plotting and war making, finally threw off the yoke of the English king and consolidated a sense of Scottish identity. "Never will we on any conditions be subjected to the lordship of the English," said the Declaration of Arbroath, a diplomatic letter commissioned by Bruce in 1320. "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches,...

Fred Ross's change-making Axioms for Organizers is updated for the Internet age, and for a new generation battling discrimination and police brutality.Most residents of Ferguson, Missouri, have probably never heard of Fred Ross, Sr., but they could use his help now. Ferguson's population is two-thirds African American, but the mayor, almost all members of the city council and school board, and 95 percent of the police department is white, and in last year's municipal election only 7 percent of blacks came to the polls. Ross—perhaps the most influential (but little-known) community organizer in American history—had a successful career mobilizing people...

Happy National Read a Book Day! Celebrate with these essential sci-fi classics. Space, dystopian futures, robots, technology, aliens . . . what is there not to love about science fiction, a genre that stretches the imagination and offers a glimpse into what lies in a galaxy and time far, far away? Now that you've indulged on the most compelling, classic epic fantasy series, it's time to switch gears. Onward, futurists! We recruited our own POPSUGAR editors to help compile the ultimate list of geeky reads. And this week, we're showcasing the best sci-fi narratives, with all the traditional elements of...

He played Jaws, the towering bad guy with the steel teeth, in 'The Spy Who Loved Me' and 'Moonraker' Richard Kiel, the 7-foot-2 actor who played Jaws, the James Bond villain with the teeth of steel, died Wednesday. He was 74. Kiel broke his leg last week and died in St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, Calif., according to several media reports. Kiel's signature character appeared in the Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979).

The matter remains unsettled, and probably will for quite a while. Many schools have gone with the flow of offering students a tablet or laptop computer that will contain all their most essential lessons. Many schools consider it a given, that within five to ten years, there will be no physical books at all. Every piece of study matter will be found on a computer owned or rented by the student. But wait, there is subtle pushback. Not so fast, say many of the students themselves. Most students, from elementary through grad school, have grown up surrounded with digital inventions,...

...Anna Karenina, is brought to life by Google with an image of Anna and Vronsky as they first meet ...His epic novel, War and Peace, is illustrated with Pierre Bezukhov, looking up at the great comet of 1812:

Discus­sions of English Language pet peeves pro­vide an enter­tain­ing forum for the expres­sion of ire. In fact, if a “pet” is some­thing we cher­ish, and a “peeve” is some­thing that annoys us, “pet peeves” are what we love to hate. Here’s a col­lec­tion of com­mon English solecisms—guaranteed not to lit­er­ally blow your mind:

Earlier this month, two fan conventions came to London: Nine Worlds and the World Science Fiction Convention, commonly know as Worldcon. Worldcon is in its 72nd year, a huge old dinosaur (or perhaps an aging dragon) of science-fiction fandom. This year more than 10,000 people paid for memberships, which included entrance to the annual Hugo Awards. The official guests of honor were revered science-fiction and fantasy authors, editors, and illustrators, all of whom were in their 60s and 70s. Nine Worlds was smaller, younger, and catered to a more varied crowd including comics, TV, and fanfic followers. But since both...

Too bad there's no such thing as White Out for sidewalks. Turns out, after the organizers of the Rainbow Honor Walk unveiled 20 "heroines and heroes" of the LGBT communities in San Francisco's Castro District on Tuesday, several eagle-eyed copy editor types spotted two glaring typos cemented in the sidewalk. Playwright Oscar Wilde’s plate, for example, says the writer was “known for his bitting wit.” And Christine Jorgensen, the first widely known person to have sex reassignment surgery, is called the “first trangendered American” rather than “transgendered.” The CastroBubble blog was the first online site to point out the mistakes,...

The Parthenon represents, for many, a golden age in human achievement: the 5th-century b.c. Greek flowering of democracy, sciences, and the arts. But what if its chief ornament, the Parthenon frieze, turned out to be not an embodiment of reason and proportion—of stillness at the heart of motion, quiet piety, and enlightened civic responsibility—but (or, rather, also) something darker, more primitive: a representation of the critical moment in an ancient story of a king at war, a human sacrifice, and a goddess’s demand for virgin blood? That’s the argument at the heart of The Parthenon Engima. The plot involves not...

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is a fan of positive-thinking self-help book “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne.

‘The Giver’ to ‘The Great Gatsby’: How the movie adaptations stack up to the books that inspired themDuring a panel moderated by The Washington Post’s film critic Anne Hornaday — Great Books to Great Movies on Saturday, Aug. 30 at 8 p.m. during the National Book Festival — authors E.L. Doctorow, Alice McDermott, Paul Auster and Lisa See, whose books were made into movies, will discuss and present in a multimedia exhibit clips from films based on their writing. But what happens when really good books fail to live up to people’s expectations in really bad movie adaptations? Or, the...

Prize-winning novelist Will Self has launched a stinging attack on George OrwellThe novelist Will Self has denounced George Orwell as the "Supreme Mediocrity" of postwar literary Britain, in a piece written for the BBC Radio 4 programme A Point of View which aired on August 29. The thrust of Self's argument is that Orwell's famous 1946 essay, 'Politics and the English Language', in which he argues for simplicity and clarity in written English, is fundamentally flawed. In the essay, Orwell encourages the use of short words and everyday English, and the avoidance of cliché. But, according to Self, who is...

An illustrated edition of Amity Shlaes’s #1 New York Times bestseller, featuring vivid black-and-white illustrations that capture this dark period in American history and the men and women, from all walks of life, whose character and ideas helped them persevere. This imaginative illustrated edition brings to life one of the most devastating periods in our nation’s history—the Great Depression—through the lives of American people, from politicians and workers to businessmen, farmers, and ordinary citizens. Smart and stylish, black-and-white art from acclaimed illustrator Paul Rivoche provides an utterly original vision of the coexistence of despair and hope that characterized Depression-era America....

1. Nicolas Cage passed up the role of Aragorn because of “family obligations.” 2. Daniel Day-Lewis also turned down the role multiple times. 3. The same fight choreographer and fencer who worked on Lord of the Rings also worked on The Parent Trap and Star Wars. 4. And he said that Viggo Mortensen was “the best swordsman [he] ever trained.”

I think there was a time in which the left owned the blues but things have come full circle to a point in which we own the blues. The Blues will never go away and conservatives need to push this into our culture. IMHO The "Blues" cuts to the core of virtually everything that matters. I will put forth my modern and somewhat obscure samples, as I hope to see yours.

The latest Google doodle – a wispy, fanged blonde girl-head floating over a sleeping dark-haired woman – commemorates the 200th birthday of the Irish novelist Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-73). The image honours his most famous story, Carmilla, first published in 1871 in a magazine called The Dark Blue, then incorporated a year later into the important collection In a Glass Darkly. The novella is notable for tackling a vampire theme decades before Le Fanu's countryman Bram Stoker wrote Dracula (which contains several deliberate echoes of Carmilla) and presenting an eroticised view of predatory female friendship which earns it a...

Sheila Weller’s forthcoming tell-all ‘The News Sorority’ claims to offer up details on the scandalous and sometimes catty escapades of noteworthy newswomen, including how some apparently hold strong disdain for each other. Katie Couric cultivated an “American Girl identity” but she was also a bully with a “chip on her shoulder.” Diane Sawyer strived to be “America’s Aunt” but she rode her staff hard and used “staged humility” to disarm critics. Christiane Amanpour was fearless in the field and would remind her bosses, “Do you know that I’m the world’s best-known foreign correspondent?” And, when feeling threatened, these pioneering, primetime...

The earliest people in the North American Arctic remained isolated from others in the region for millennia before vanishing around 700 years ago, a new genetic analysis shows. The study, published online Thursday, also reveals that today's Inuit and Native Americans of the Arctic are genetically distinct from the region's first settlers. Inuit hunters in the Canadian Arctic have long told stories about a mysterious ancient people known as the Tunit, who once inhabited the far north. Tunit men, they recalled, possessed powerful magic and were strong enough to crush the neck of a walrus and singlehandedly haul the massive...