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.

Book Review: Three new novels extend the beloved stories of Jane Austen

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Book Review: Three new novels extend the beloved stories of Jane Austen – washingtonpost.com: Fifteen years ago the name Jane Austen resonated mainly with earnest high school students and any of their elders who remembered the 1940 black-and-white ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ adapted by Aldous Huxley and starring Laurence Olivier. Then the literary tectonic plates shifted. […]

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Book review: ‘This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All’

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Book review: ‘This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All,’ by Marilyn Johnson – washingtonpost.com: In researching her previous book, ‘The Dead Beat,’ which celebrates the pleasures of obituaries, Marilyn Johnson discovered that, with few exceptions, ‘the most engaging obit subjects were librarians.’ Motivated by ‘the idea that libraries were where

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International Women’s Day

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International Women’s Day: International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, IWD is a national holiday. The first IWD was run in 1911. Next year is IWD Global Centenary 1911-2011. Check this

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Benny and Penny’ tops 2010 Geisel awards list of best books for beginners

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Books | ‘Benny and Penny’ tops 2010 Geisel awards list of best books for beginners | Seattle Times Newspaper: A list of recipients of the Geisel Award for beginning readers: “The award, presented annually by the American Library Association, is named for the man better known as Dr. Seuss.”

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Making the Case for iPad E-Book Prices – NYTimes.com

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Making the Case for iPad E-Book Prices – NYTimes.com: For those of us whose heads are still spinning from trying to understand all the hoopla, both philosophical and financial, over pricing and distribution of ebooks, this article gets to the dollars and sense of the matter. For example, on a hardcover book priced at $26,

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Barry Hannah, Darkly Comic Writer, Dies at 67

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Barry Hannah, Darkly Comic Writer, Dies at 67 – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com: Barry Hannah, a writer who found wide acclaim with wild, darkly comic short stories and novels set in a phantasmagoric South moving at warp speed, died on Monday at his home in Oxford, Miss. He was 67.

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After a long courtship, Angelina Jolie will play Kay Scarpetta

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After a long courtship, Angelina Jolie will play Kay Scarpetta / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com: In a follow-up matter to my previous post, Christian Science Monitor book blogger Marjorie Kehe is reporting that many people, like me, are not impressed by the choice of Angelina Jolie to play Kay Scarpetta: Not everyone is

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Looking Glass for the Mind: 350 Years of Books for Children

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Looking Glass for the Mind: 350 Years of Books for Children http://content.lib.washington.edu/childrensweb/exhibit.html The University of Washington Digital Collection of children’s books starts off with a wonderful piece that touches on the beloved memories children’s books bring back for so many, but also on the reasons why a university library would collect children’s books. Several of

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Angelina Jolie to play Kay Scarpetta

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Angelina Jolie to play Kay Scarpetta – latimes.com: Jolie’s desire to play Scarpetta has revived prospects of a movie franchise that could begin shooting as early as next fall. In a surprise, Fox 2000 has decided to jettison the books in favor of an origins story written directly for the screen. Set in the present

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