Once upon a time I had trouble finding books that I enjoyed. I am pretty picky with my reads, and often a book that is getting a lot of press and accolades leaves me cold. Suffice it to say that I had to figure out some ways to find books that I loved without relying … Continue reading Beyond the Bestsellers: How to Find Your Next Favourite Book
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 am eternally searching for murder mysteries that scratch a very specific itch. I have extremely high standards and a very particular set of criteria for my ideal mystery novel, which are: The mystery must be a satisfying puzzle; there can be none of that nonsense where the author springs a crucial piece of information … Continue reading A Murder Mystery After My Heart: Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely
On the heels of my Brontë reading extravaganza, I finally picked up Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea and pushed through the sad animal deaths in the beginning chapters. And am I ever glad that I did. The book is a beautiful, complicated wonder. It tells the story of Mr. Rochester's first wife (Bertha Mason in … Continue reading “There is always another side, always”: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
It feels like a long moment since I've posted about one of my true loves: what Persephone Books terms "neglected classics," penned by female writers. Some may venture to call it vintage "middlebrow" fiction (but others may bare their teeth at them). Today I am delighted to be writing about Margery Sharp, who has somehow … Continue reading A Vintage Delight: The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
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
Literary paper dolls. Has anyone had a better idea, ever? I'm a little bit late to this party, but starting in May 2019, The Paris Review writer Julia Berick partnered with illustrator Jenny Kroik to create: "what us bookworm-clotheshorse child-adults have always wanted: literary paper dolls." The first one in the series was my very … Continue reading Rereading Old Favourites: an Interlude (with Paper Dolls)
I love the winter. It's an unpopular stance, I know. Especially since I'm not particularly into winter activities. But I love the snow, the way it blankets everything and muffles sound, creating a silent, insulated world that glitters in the light. I love curling up inside with a warm blanket and a mug of tea, … Continue reading Winter Reading Roundup: The Tove Jansson Edition
Although I am a big fan of mystery novels, I have read very little in the way of noir. I am ever so slowly remedying that, and thus far can count The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, and, now, Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes, as under my … Continue reading Murder, Glamour, and #MeToo, 1940s-Style: Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes
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