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.

book review

“Journalution” by Sandy Grason

Grason, Sandy. Journalution: Journaling to Awaken Your Inner Voice, Heal Your Life, and Manifest Your DreamsNovato, CA: New World Library, 2005ISBN 1-57731-483-2 There are A LOT of books about journal writing, so I almost didn’t pick up this one when I first saw it. But I’m glad I did. Grason covers all the usual aspects […]

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The lure of made-up memoirs

The lure of made-up memoirs – Los Angeles Times And here’s one more. The author of this piece compares the current faked memoir to Famous All Over Town, a first-person account of growing up in the gang culture of East L.A., published in 1983. That book, supposedly by a young Chicano writer named Danny Santiago,

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Bogus memoir sparks criticism of publishing industry

Bogus memoir sparks criticism of publishing industry – Los Angeles Times Here’s another reaction to the faked memoir by “Margaret B. Jones,” this one from Los Angeles, where the action of the book supposedly took place.  This article goes further than does The New York Times by looking at this book as “part of a

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Fallout From a Literary Fraud

Fallout From a Literary Fraud – Love and Consequences – Margaret Seltzer – Margaret B. Jones – New York Times In a follow-up article to yesterday’s revelation about another faked memoir, publishers and editors defend themselves.

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Gang Memoir Is Pure Fiction

Gang Memoir, Turning Page, Is Pure Fiction – New York Times Yet another memoir bites the dust. Love and Consequences by Margaret B. Jones was published last week.  In this memoir Margaret B. Jones claims to be a half-white, half-Native American who grew up as a foster child in the gangland of South-Central Los Angeles

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“Hold Tight” by Harlan Coben

Coben, Harlan. Hold Tight (2008)  Dutton, 321 pages, $26.95 hardcover  ISBN-10: 0525950605  ISBN-13: 978-0525950608. Recommended When Mike and Tia Baye install a spy program on their son Adam’s computer, they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. All they know is that 16-year-old Adam has become increasingly more withdrawn and sullen over the past

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Landmark Massachusetts Building Where Wharton Wrote Faces Foreclosure

Landmark Massachusetts Building Where Wharton Wrote Faces Foreclosure – New York Times “The Mount, Edith Wharton’s estate in Lenox, Mass., is in danger of being put in foreclosure.” To stay open, The Mount needs to raise $3 million by March 24.

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50 States of Literature: Heads in Hawaii | Columbia Spectator

50 States of Literature: Heads in Hawaii | Columbia Spectator The Columbia Spectator heads to Hawaii with the novel Heads by Harry: Lois-ann Yamanaka is exceptionally gifted at making the unusual and unsavory seem exotic and entrancing—taxidermy is “true art, not a painting or poem, inaccurate and prone to interpretation, but breathing life into flesh

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Author Phyllis Whitney Dies at Age 104

Prolific American author Phyllis A. Whitney has died in Virginia at the age of 104. Although she did not write her first book until she was nearly 40, she published more than 100 short stories, 73 works of fiction, many magazine articles, and three books about how to write fiction (including Writing Juvenile Stories and

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Gatsby’s Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers – New York Times

Gatsby’s Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers – New York Times F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby continues to inspire urban youth, many of whom are immigrants, with its portrayal of the American dream. The book is still required reading in half the high schools in the U.S. It sells about

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