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.

Lauren Myracle withdraws from National Book Award finalists – latimes.com

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Lauren Myracle withdraws from National Book Award finalists – latimes.com. This story is all over Twitter this morning. Here’s just one newspaper’s account of why this mess occurred. Apparently, the National Book Foundation doesn’t like the subject matter of Lauren Myracle’s novel Shine, which deals with a hate crime. In requesting the withdrawal of the […]

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Monday Miscellany

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Vashon Great Books club one of oldest in U.S. The Seattle Times spotlights 92-year-old Grace Crecelius: For 61 years, Grace Crecelius has cracked the books. Not just any books, mind you, but the works of Plato, Descartes and Kant, Shakespeare, Marx and Freud. At 92, Crecelius is the oldest member of what may be one

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Monday Miscellany

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Nine seems to be this week’s lucky number. Nine Pilgrimages For the Lover of Western Literature A pilgrimage is the focal point around which a journey wraps, not the raison d’etre per se (that is the journey itself) but rather the pulley on the far end of the rope that ratchets you out of your

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National Book Foundation Announces This Year’s 5 Under 35 Honorees – GalleyCat

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National Book Foundation Announces This Year’s 5 Under 35 Honorees – GalleyCat And the winners are: The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu (selected by Nicole Krauss) Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans (selected by Robert Stone) The Walking People by Mary Beth Keane (selected by Julia Glass)

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Swedish Poet Wins Nobel Prize for Literature – NYTimes.com

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Swedish Poet Wins Nobel Prize for Literature – NYTimes.com Tomas Transtromer, the Swedish poet whose sometimes bleak but powerful work explores themes of nature, isolation and identity, won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.  

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Monday Miscellany

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The greatest death scenes in literature Five judges of the 2012 Wellcome Trust book prize for medicine in literature ponder the question “What makes for a great literary death scene?” Tim Lott calls their choices “eclectic.” Take a look, and see if you have other favorite death scenes to add to the list. The 10

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Amazon Unveils Its Tablet, The Kindle Fire: Can It Compete? : Monkey See : NPR

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Amazon Unveils Its Tablet, The Kindle Fire: Can It Compete? : Monkey See : NPR NPR offers an extensive review of Amazon’s new Kindle offerings, including a direct comparison between the Kindle Fire and Apple’s iPad: A supercharged Kindle or an underpowered iPad? For the Fire to catch on, Amazon probably needs it to be

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Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet, Three New Kindle Models Starting at $79

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Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet, Three New Kindle Models Starting at $79 At a packed press event in New York this morning, Amazon unveiled its long-expected tablet offering, called the Kindle Fire. The company also debuted three new Kindle devices, with the least expensive priced at $79. Through a link in this short article,

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Glendale school board may block ‘In Cold Blood’ – latimes.com

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Glendale school board may block ‘In Cold Blood’ – latimes.com The landmark 1966 literary nonfiction book “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote may not make it onto a high school honors reading list in Glendale after obections were raised by a committee made up of school principals. The school board must approve the book before

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Literature & Psychology | Scoop.it

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Literature & Psychology | Scoop.it. Please check out my newest undertaking and let me know what you think.

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