Adrienne Raptis
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[fusion_text]Benoit B. Mandelbrot was a mathematician who would completely change the way biologists view nature, the way financial advisors see patterns in markets, and eventually, the way computer animators design lively scenes in Pixar movies. But before his famous discovery of the Mandelbrot set in 1979, outlined in Fractals: Form, Chance, and Dimension, the mathematician…
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David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York in February of 1962 to parents Sally Foster and James Wallace. He spent his early childhood and adolescent years in Illinois and was regionally ranked as a junior tennis player in his teens. Wallace’s parents were both professors and when it came time to go to…
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Bernard Malamud’s story began like many self-made persons in America during his era, as a child born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Malamud came of age during the start of the Great Depression and attended Erasmus Hall High School, a popular public high school at the time while Brooklyn’s population…
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Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, also known as V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in the early 1930s. Naipaul’s father had emigrated from India with his grandparents in the 1880s, who sought work as indentured servants in Trinidad’s sugar plantations. Three years before Naipaul’s birth, his father began contributing to the Trinidad Guardian as an English-language…
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Kurt Vonnegut was an author who found humorous and imaginative ways to write about disconcerting realities that face us every day, from the plagues of war to the looming presence of technology. In his first novel, Player Piano, Vonnegut brings the two themes together in the setting ten years after a third world war, a…
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“Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” Those words were famously written by one of the most influential writers in the 20th century, James Joyce. The quote comes from Joyce’s work Ulysses, an epic novel that was originally published in parts throughout continuous issues of magazine The…
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Considered one of the greatest American architects of all time, Frank Lloyd Wright believed that structures should be designed in harmony with humanity and its environment. He coined this philosophy “organic architecture,” and it would eventually become what distinguished his innovative work. The best example of this philosophy is the Fallingwater house he designed in…
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Known for his magnum opus, The Human Comedy, Honoré de Balzac was one of those natural born talents that constantly went against the mold. As a child, his headstrong personality caused him much frustration as he navigated his way through grammar school. Shortly after graduation, Balzac took an apprenticeship in a law office but soon…
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[fusion_text]A rare book is a treasure that is meant to be preserved for your lifetime and beyond. Building your own personal library is a way to conserve a cultural heritage and create a lasting legacy for future generations. These books cannot be easily replaced, and it is vitally important that you understand how to take…
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1. The Christmas Books by Charles Dickens The only reason to shout “Bah! Humbug!” at this collection is when you’re trying to decide which book to read first! The entire first edition set of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books include A Christmas Carol (first issue), The Chimes, The Battle of Life, Cricket on the Hearth, and…
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