For those, like me, who might be put off by words such as "praying" and "sacred," first things first: this is not a religious book. Truly. What this book is, is a shockingly intimate series of essays (or as the author calls them, sermons) that dig deep into the novel Jane Eyre to extract meaning … Continue reading The Sacred and the Profane: Praying with Jane Eyre by Vanessa Zoltan
The trees are a flare of colour, the sky is a steadfast blue, the smoky and sweet scents of bonfires and pumpkin spice are in the air — yes, it's autumn, the best season of them all. I've been saving Comet Weather by Liz Williams for just this moment in time, and it was the … Continue reading The Perfect Book for Autumn, Prove Me Wrong: Comet Weather by Liz Williams
The Nomeolvides women are bound by three things: 1. Anyone they fall in love with vanishes.2. If they leave the bounds of La Pradera, the estate they live on, they will die. 3. They can make flowers grow from their fingertips. Feiwal and Friends, 2017 Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore is a gorgeous fairy tale … Continue reading Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore
Content warning: child abuse, ritual sacrifice This novella was not quite what I was expecting. It tells the story of seventeen-year-old Silvie, who, along with her parents, is accompanying a group of university students and their professor on a 2-week "experimental archaeology" camp to reenact Iron Age life in northern England. Silvie is not a … Continue reading Heat, Haunting, and Heartbreak: Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
The Awakening is one of those books that has been sitting on my bookshelf for ages, unread. I finally sat down and read it, and now I have Some Thoughts. The introductory note in my Dover Thrift edition teases with the following: Chopin's second and last novel, The Awakening, was published in 1899 and aroused … Continue reading (Sea) Salty Thoughts on The Awakening by Kate Chopin
I've been a fan of Rainbow Rowell for a long time. She is one of my all-time favourite comfort-read authors, and Fangirl has long been my number one pick of her books (I wrote one of my first blog posts about it). However, these days the Simon Snow trilogy has elbowed its way to the … Continue reading In Which I Talk at Length About Rainbow Rowell’s Simon Snow Trilogy, and Eat Sour Cherry Scones
In an abandoned royal compound surrounded by haunted birch barrens and a glowing lake, an old peasant woman spins stories. A young cleric listens, and writes records. A magical bird listens, and remembers. The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo is a small and perfectly spare novella. In spite of its brevity, it … Continue reading Come for the Intrigue, Stay for the Impeccability: The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
September was a pretty banner month for me. For one thing, I got to attend a 10-day writing residency on an off-the-grid island, with two other writers, a wood-fired sauna, and some attendant loons and beavers. For another, I got my hands on Claire-Louise Bennett's newest book, Checkout 19. If you aren't familiar with Claire-Louise … Continue reading I Will Follow Claire-Louise Bennett Anywhere
Summer won’t officially start for another couple of weeks, but unofficially there are unmistakable signs of it having arrived. For one, my cats are pretty much permanently stretched out into long tubes on any cool surface they can find. For another, fans have been pulled out of storage and turned on. The air is hot … Continue reading Summer Reading Roundup
I’m a discerning reader. Well, okay, some might call me picky. For many years I maintained that I didn’t like contemporary fiction at all, and I only read old books (not always classics—I had, and still have, a deep love of the so-called "middlebrow" novel). Of course, I was simply looking in the wrong places. … Continue reading Something Old, Something New
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