The Third Person: Writing in the Aftermath of a Home Robbery “Kate Sidley Wrote About Tidy Mysteries in a Faraway Country. Then Real Violence Came Into Her Home.” A couple of weeks ago, Literary Links included Fictionalizing Real Trauma as a Means of Healing. In this article, Kate Sidley, author of cozy mysteries set in […]
This month we start with Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Last month (February) we were directed to start with the book our chain had ended with the previous month (January), which for me was . . . Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. So this time around, I’m accepting the challenge of taking the same starting
6 Degrees of Separation: Travels Around the U.S. Read More »
When Consciousness Itself is the Protagonist: A Reading List I’ll let River Halen themselves describe the origin of this list of “books that bend reality and the self”: As I was writing my book Dream Rooms, a book about the years that led up to my coming out as trans, I found myself fascinated by
Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature Read More »
Related Posts: #4 The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns © 1997 Date read: 9/23/1997 I used to think that the most important consideration in any work of fiction is, hands down, point of view. But this novel made me realize that context is just as important. A first-person narrator tells this story, about
#4 “The Church of Dead Girls” by Stephen Dobyns Read More »
Too Enjoyable to Be Literature What a wonderful short piece! It’s only four paragraphs long (one of which is a block quotation), but it so aptly expresses a reader’s joy of recognizing and appreciating a literary work. That literary work is Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And Helen Garner has the same
The book is not so much a triumphant tale of overcoming adversity as a howl of fury at the injustice of it all. —the Guardian In this candid memoir Viola Davis details her journey from desperate childhood poverty in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to becoming one of the finest actors working today. “I learned from
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You May Be Surprised by What Scares You “Fear may be a linchpin of horror, but as a recent anthology attests, the true bedrock of the genre is mood.” Stephen Kearse writes, “even in my favorite works of the genre, horror scenarios generally intrigue rather than scare me; I’m more likely to ponder than to
Related Post: This week I offer two selections because there’s not much I can say about #3 without giving away the whole point. #2 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce © 1916 Date read: ca. 1966 or 1967 While I now credit Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl with opening
Why is March 2024 the Best Month in Years For Books? “In Her Debut Column, Maris Kreizman Considers This Spring’s Flood of Great Books” Maris Kreizman describes the kinds of books she, as a critic, likes to cover: The books that move me aren’t the kinds that are written by celebrities; they’re often labors of
This month we start with the book we ended with in January. That was Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. The title refers to a region in Michigan where the protagonist and her family own a cherry orchard. first degree My first-degree entry is a no-brainer: Anton Checkhov’s probably best known play, The Cherry Orchard. second
6 Degrees of Separation: From “Tom Lake” to “The Thirteenth Tale” Read More »
