Mary Daniels Brown

My mother always insisted that, as soon as I was old enough to sit up, she’d find me in my crib after my nap babbling away, with a Little Golden Book on my lap. I’ve had my nose in a book ever since. I grew up in a small town, with the tiny town library literally in my backyard. As an only child in an unhappy home, I found comfort and companionship in books. As an adult I wanted to be Harry Potter, although I admit I’m more Hermione. My life has been a series of research projects. Reading has taught me that human lives are deliciously messy and that “it’s complicated” isn’t a punchline.

Upcoming Film Adaptation of “Still Alice” by Lisa Genova

From the Toronto International Film Festival comes this announcement of the film adaptation of Lisa Genova’s novel about early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“Before I Go to Sleep”: The Film

Before I Go To Sleep: Exclusive film stills show Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth in new psychological thriller Related Posts: Introduction to Life Stories “Before I Go to Sleep,” S.J. Watson: We Are What We Remember These emotive images depict Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman as a woman who wakes up every morning remembering nothing in the

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Monday Miscellany

Reading Literature on Screen: A Price for Convenience? I love my Kindle because it allows me to carry a lot of books around without having to carry a lot of books around. And having recently downsized to a retirement home game me another reason: I no longer have room for enough bookcases to hold every

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Novelist Lev Grossman on Narrative

Lev Grossman: My depression helped inspire the Magicians trilogy – Salon.com. I think literary critics — of whom you’re one and I’m another — are much better at describing beauty on the sentence level than we are at talking about the grace of a narrative twist or wonderful pacing or the thrilling tension that a

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“Before I Go to Sleep,” S.J. Watson: We Are What We Remember

  Related Post: Introduction to Life Stories   Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel by S. J. Watson HarperCollins, 2011 Kindle Edition A woman awakens, wonders where she is, rolls over—and is shocked to see a middle-aged man wearing a wedding ring and with hairs on his back sleeping next to her. She stumbles

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Monday Miscellany

The Feud Between Amazon, Hachette Publishing, and Readers Heats Up It’s difficult to keep up with all the nuances of this issue. Here are a couple of recent articles: Dispute Between Amazon and Hachette Takes an Orwellian Turn Maybe Amazon really is rattled by the whole Authors United phenomenon organized by Douglas Preston. The writers

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Monday Miscellany

Harry Potter and the Battle Against Bigotry Sure, Harry Potter destroyed the evil Lord Voldemort. But, aside from making lots of money for book publishers and film studio/theme-park conglomerates, what has the wizard done for us lately? In fact, he has been helping to reduce prejudice. That’s the conclusion of research just published in the

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

Introduction to Life Stories

  “We live forwards but we understand backwards.” –Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Even though we may not be aware of it, we all carry within us a story about our lives that describes who we are. We’ve had experiences from which we’ve learned lessons, and from those experiences and lessons we’ve formulated a set

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Monday Miscellany

Ranking Cormac McCarthy’s Greatest Books I’m a week behind with this, but I include it here because Cormac McCarthy is an author I haven’t yet worked on, and I’m glad to have the suggestions offered here: Trailing Philip Roth by a few months and Toni Morrison by two years, Cormac McCarthy (who turns 81 this

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woman reading

A Dozen Mysteries and Thrillers That Blew Me Away

Although we tend to think of mysteries and thrillers together, there is a difference: In a mystery, the reader sees the clues and, near the end, discovers the culprit along with the fictional detective. In a thriller, the reader learns early on who the villain is and watches as the hero and the villain try

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