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.

Best Books of 2013 | Publishers Weekly

There’s no denying that the state of the world is reflected in our favorite books of 2013. Among our top 10 are narratives that range from the war on terror to a middle Eastern country in the iron grip of a dictator to hard times much closer to home. In others, history — factual, or […]

Best Books of 2013 | Publishers Weekly Read More »

Opening of the Online Emily Dickinson Archive

The manuscripts of Emily Dickinson have long been scattered across multiple archives, meaning scholars had to knock on numerous doors to see all the handwritten drafts of a poet whose work went almost entirely unpublished in her lifetime. The online Emily Dickinson Archive, to be inaugurated on Wednesday, promises to change all that by bringing

Opening of the Online Emily Dickinson Archive Read More »

Monday Miscellany: Big Literary News Edition

Meet Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature The big literary news of last week was the announcement of Canadian writer Alice Munro as recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Munro is generally considered to be the current master of the short-fiction form. The announcement generated a lot of articles about Munro’s

Monday Miscellany: Big Literary News Edition Read More »

Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature – NYTimes.com Canadian writer Alice Munro, master of the short-fiction form, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature: Ms. Munro revolutionized the architecture of short stories, often beginning a story in an unexpected place, then moving backward or forward in time. She brought a modesty and subtle wit

Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature Read More »

Monday Miscellany

10 Impressive Uses of Borrowed Characters in Literature Kim Newman, whose latest book, Johnny Alucard, is out now, tells us: “In the Anno Dracula series, I’ve made use not only of characters and situations appropriated from Bram Stoker’s novel but a host of other preexisting fictional folk to populate the next-door-but-one world where Dracula defeated Van Helsing and

Monday Miscellany Read More »

2013 Dayton Peace Prize Winners Announced

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize awards committee announced yesterday that Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon and The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson have been named the winners of the 2013 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction and fiction, respectively. via 2013 Dayton Peace Prize Winners Announced.

2013 Dayton Peace Prize Winners Announced Read More »

School Board Reverses Ban on Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’ – Brian Feldman – The Atlantic Wire

The Randolph County school board in North Carolina has rescinded its ban on Ralph Ellison’s highly revered Invisible Man following a little over a week of intense criticism from free speech and literary advocates. The 5-2 decision, initially sparked by a parent’s complaint that the book was not appropriate for teenagers, was reversed in a

School Board Reverses Ban on Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’ – Brian Feldman – The Atlantic Wire Read More »

Censorship and Invisibility: A Boomer Perspective

Censorship and Invisibility: A Boomer Perspective | Barbara Jones. Banned Books Week: September 22-28 In honor of Banned Books Week, Barbara Jones, director of the ALA (American Library Association) Office for Intellectual Freedom, offers a history lesson on book censorship over at Huffington Post. She recalls that, when she was an undergraduate at the University

Censorship and Invisibility: A Boomer Perspective Read More »

Monday Miscellany

Why GR’s new review rules are censorship – Some thoughts Late Friday (US time) Goodreads announced a change in review and shelving policy, and immediately started deleting readers’ reviews and shelves. In doing this they became censors. Limiting readers’ ability to discuss the cultural context of a book is censorship designed to promote authors’ interests.

Monday Miscellany Read More »

Monday Miscellany

11 Required Reading Books You Should Re-Read Now That You’re Older Madeleine Crum thinks you’d benefit from rereading these books that you were probably required to struggle through in English classes while growing up. I have actually reread several of these in recent years, and I agree with her assessment that they have much more

Monday Miscellany Read More »

Scroll to Top