Jennifer Acker

The founder and editor in chief of The Common magazine

- Mary Shelley

1 I doubt Mary Shelley would ever forgive us for thinking Frankenstein was the monster of her novel, instead of the doctor rescued from icy waters on a voyage to the North Pole by one Capt. R. Walton. This mesmerizing stranger, named Victor Frankenstein, thaws out aboard Walton's ship and begins to tell his story, which in turn becomes the subject of the captain's letters to his sister, Margaret: "My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at once my admiration and my pity to an astonishing degree."

While Walton slowly fades into the background and yields to this bright young scientist who reanimated human flesh, we the readers are drawn ever more deeply into this incredible tale, which is often credited as the first science-fiction novel. Walton's act of kindness in the remote waters contrasts with the increasing cruelty of Victor's creation; by the end, the actions of both are characterized as central to our humanity.

Dear Committee Members By Julie Schumacher (2014)

2 An ingenious twist on the epistolary novel, "Dear Committee Members" spans one academic year in the life of a beleaguered English professor succumbing to a relentless wave of requests for letters of recommendation.

Jay Fitger's literary star is waning, but his pen shines brightly, and hilariously, on behalf of his students as he digressively recommends them to writing residencies, his agent, medical school, catering services and RV parks. Meanwhile, he suffers the indignities of the administration's decision to move the economics department into better quarters at the expense of the English faculty, who have been "Left Behind, almost biblically... while bulldozers snarl at the door."