Exploring Great Books, Enduring Ideas, and the Art of Expression

At first, Haircut hardly seems to be a formal narrative. A barber cuts a customer’s hair and fills the time with stories about the people of his town. One memory leads to another, and the talk moves with the looseness of ordinary gossip. Yet the apparent ease of the conversation depends upon careful selection. The story is shaped by what the barber remembers, the order in which he remembers it, and the significance he fails to recognise. Lardner therefore does not present eve

How Maple Syrup Became a National Personality DELPHI LEARNING ILLUSTRATION Every country eventually discovers the object by which it prefers to introduce itself to strangers. France arrives carrying wine. Italy brings olive oil. Japan quietly unfolds exquisite craftsmanship. Switzerland glances at its watch to make sure everyone else is late. Canada, after considerable reflection, presents a bottle of maple syrup. Not merely presents it, in fact. It packages it in elegant gla

Most stories ask us a simple question: What happens next? Others ask a quieter one: Can people truly change? We rarely answer that question by listening to what characters say about themselves. Instead, we watch what they do when life places something unexpected before them. Few writers understood this better than O. Henry. First published in 1903, The Retrieved Reformation reflects the qualities that made him one of America’s most admired short-story writers: graceful econom