Mary Daniels Brown

Mary Daniels Brown learned at an early age how to read people, and she’s been doing that ever since. Combining advanced education in both literature and psychology, she reads and reviews novels that explore identity, the search for meaning and purpose in life, and the varieties of human experience. She’s been blogging about books at Notes in the Margin for more than 25 years. Mary believes that her focus on Life Stories in Literature has made her both a more astute reader and a happier, more human person.

Scout, Atticus & Boo

Scout, Atticus & Boo – CSMonitor.com: Yvonne Zipp, in Christian Science Monitor, reviews a new book issued to honor the fiftieth anniversary–July 11–of the publication of Harper Lee’s iconic novel To Kill a Mockingbird: “‘Scout, Atticus & Boo’ is a lovely celebration of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ And if, in the end, many of the […]

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The Writer Who Couldn’t Read : NPR

The Writer Who Couldn’t Read : NPR: This fascinating story from NPR (National Public Radio) tells the story of Howard Engel, a Canadian mystery novelist who woke up one morning and discovered that he could no longer read. His brain damaged by a stroke, Engel couldn’t make sense of written words, which looked to him

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José Saramago, Nobel Prize-Winning Portuguese Writer, Dies at 87

José Saramago, Nobel Prize-Winning Portuguese Writer, Dies at 87 – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com: José Saramago, the Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998 with novels that combine surrealist experimentation with a kind of sardonic peasant pragmatism, died on Friday at his home in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. He was

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The Psychology of Reading: A Select Bibliography

This list includes some of the books mentioned in a previous post as well as others about the psychology of reading. It is intended as a starting point rather than a definitive bibliography on the subject. Dehaene, Stanislas. Reading in the Brain: the Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. New York: Viking, 2009. Print.

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Fictive Worlds and Real Brains: The Psychology of Reading

If you’ve ever gotten lost in a good book, you know the feeling of being transported into a different reality: Awareness of your surroundings melts away, time seems to stop, and you immerse yourself completely in the world of the book. Like daydreaming, this feeling of being carried into another world is an alternate state

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At BookExpo America, Anxiety Amid the Chatter

At BookExpo America, Anxiety Amid the Chatter – NYTimes.com: As the book industry gathered for its annual convention in New York this week, it had plenty to be nervous about: the threat of piracy, the decline of brick-and-mortar stores and the perhaps-too-low price of e-books.

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Business & Technology | Amazon.com’s Kindle fails first college test | Seattle Times Newspaper

Business & Technology | Amazon.com’s Kindle fails first college test | Seattle Times Newspaper: If Amazon hoped for honest feedback when it started testing the Kindle DX on college campuses last fall, it certainly got its wish; students pulled no punches telling the Seattle Internet giant what they thought of its $489 e-reader. But if

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A tale of two mediums: Despite the iPad, traditional books aren’t going anywhere.

A tale of two mediums: Despite the iPad, traditional books aren’t going anywhere.: Over on The Unofficial Apple Weblog, writer–and reader–Michael Grothaus compares reading a novel both in its traditional, printed format with reading it on the iPad. For his experiment he read alternating chapters of the same novel in paperback and in the iPad’s

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