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.

“Hard Time” by Sara Paretsky

Paretsky, Sara. Hard Time (1999).  Delacorte, 385 pages, $24.95 hardcover  ISBN 0 385 31363 Whatever demons were haunting Sara Paretsky, she seems to have exorcised them in Ghost Country, for Hard Time brings back V.I. Warshawski in the author’s best novel yet. When Global Entertainment, a media conglomerate, purchases the Chicago Herald-Star, V.I. Warshawski’s long-time […]

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“Ghost Country” by Sara Paretsky

Paretsky, Sara. Ghost Country (1998)   Delacorte, 386 pages, $24.95 hardcover  ISBN 0 385 29933 8 I was very glad when Sara Paretsky finally proved wrong my fear (after reading Windy City Blues) that she might never publish again with the appearance of Ghost Country. Then I read the novel.   Ghost Country starts off

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book review

“Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith” by Anne Lamott

Lamott, Anne. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith Pantheon Books, 1999Hardcover, 275 pagesISBN 0-679-44240-5 I’m not a big fan of the poor-me-I-had-a-lousy-childhood school of memoir writing that’s so popular today, so when Lamott began her book with declarations of her childhood search for parental love, approval, and acceptance, and with acknowledgement of an abortion and drug

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“Windy City Blues” by Sara Paretsky

Paretsky, Sara. Windy City Blues (1995)Delacorte When Windy City Blues, a collection of V.I. Warshawski short stories, came out, Sara Paretsky was in the midst of a prolonged and well publicized writing slump. After I read this book, my heart sank. I feared that we might never see another Paretsky book again. I imagined this

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book review

“The Reader, the Text, the Poem” by Louise M. Rosenblatt

Rosenblatt, Louise M. The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work  Carbondale, Ill., 1978Hardcover, 196 pagesISBN 0-8093-0883-5 Highly Recommended Rosenblatt is one of the proponents of the reader-response theory of literary criticism, a concept that emerged in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s as a reaction to New Criticism, which treated

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“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)   rpt. Warner, 1982, 281 pages, $6.99 paperbackISBN 0-446-31078-6 Highly Recommended The story takes place in rural Maycomb, Alabama, between the summer of 1933 and Halloween of 1935. In Part One the young narrator, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, sets the stage for the main action by introducing us

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“O” is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton

Grafton, Sue. “O” is for Outlaw (1999)   Henry Holt and Company, 318 pages, $26.00 hardcover   ISBN 0 8050 5955 5 In an introductory note Grafton explains to the reader that Kinsey Millhone time progresses at a slower pace than real time: “Since the books are sequential, Ms. Millhone is caught up in a

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“Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet ” by M.C. Beaton

Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (1993)  St. Martin’s, 199 pages, $17.95 hardcover  ISBN 0‑312‑09242‑3 Agatha Raisin arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport with a tan outside and a blush of shame inside. She felt an utter fool as she pushed her load of luggage towards the exit. She had just spent two weeks in the

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“Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death” by M.C. Beaton

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (1992). St. Martin’s, 201 pages, $17.95 hardcover  ISBN 0‑312‑08153‑7 When we first meet Agatha Raisin, she’s 53 years old and about to retire from her public relations job in London to a cottage in the Cotswolds: “The Cotswolds in the Midlands are surely one of the few man‑made

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“Death of a Gossip” by M.C. Beaton

Death of a Gossip (1985) Warner Books, 179 pages, $6.50 paperback  ISBN 0‑446‑60713‑4 Every week during salmon-fishing season a new class arrives at the fishing school in Lochdubh run by John and Heather Cartwright. But town constable Hamish Macbeth has a bad feeling about this particular class…. Macbeth is the lone police officer in Lochdubh,

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