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...work with patterns. Repeating patterns of notes and repeating patterns of rhythms are what enable listeners to follow and understand a piece of music. Many composers have been fascinated by the effects that can be created by repeating the same pattern over and over again, something that music theory calls an ostinato. Some composers have taken such things to extremes:...

...works of the 1950s and 1960s, such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series. This is the moment when fantasy fiction as we know it today really took off. And speaking of multiple media, it is possible that you have played the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game, first published...

...Working Life during Half a Century. He tells of a shy, but smart, man...[Thomas DeQuincey] Thomas De Quincey When the fifth number of the Magazine was published in July, 1824, I had become acquainted with Mr. De Quincey; and he had contributed a paper translated, as he purported, from the German of Laun, called The Incognito. It was a very lively and pleasant paper ; but...