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The tradition of playing harmless tricks on friends and neighbors goes back hundreds of years, and has been mentioned in literature as far back as 1392 in Chaucer’s ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’. Many famous authors have taken their pranking off the page and into real life, as well. Virginia Woolfe participated in the Dreadnought Hoax of 1910, posing with friends as Abyssinian royals. Even the dour Edgar Allen Poe perpetrated a series of scientific hoaxes in the 1840s, including a fictional balloon trip!

From Shakespeare to Harry Potter, here are eight of the best tricksters in literature.

With constantly shifting alliances, the characters in the Game of Thrones series can rarely relax with friends, talk about what’s on their minds, and really bond. Since besties are hard to come by within the world of Westeros, we have some suggestions for non-Westerosi friends they might enjoy spending time with – without the threat of a sour friendship turning into political betrayal, imprisonment or even death!

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, some reality TV shows are so well-known that they must tap into some human instinct. Maybe even some literary instinct? Because we know plenty of characters from books who would be great candidates for reality television. Here are a few.

Celebrating the Bard this week, here's Erik Didriksen, author of Pop Sonnets, with a sonnet inspired by Cole Porter!

From villains to tragic heroes, these days, there’s a whole self-help genre that might have provided comfort for Shakespeare's tortured characters. Here are some books we wish we could recommend:

This Earth Day, and we’re reminiscing about the ultimate Earth Day hero, Captain Planet. Technically, he only exists when the planeteers combine their powers, but let’s imagine that when they’re not in need of him, he’s hanging out somewhere, maybe in a bamboo hammock or tiny house, catching up on his reading. Here are some books Captain Planet would love.