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.

Last Week's Links

Literary Links

How to Read the Dune Book Series in Order “21 novels with no obvious road map. Let’s dive in!” Adrienne Westenfeld, assistant editor at Esquire, offers some guidelines on how the navigate the Dune oeuvre, “21 novels with no obvious road map.” The Novelist Who Saw Middle America as It Really Was Sinclair Lewis captured […]

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Discussion

2022: My Year of Unplanned Reading

Writer Eve Peyser had a good reading year in 2021. Here’s why: “I got myself to regularly read this year because I abandoned all notions about what I “should” be reading (the classics, the entries on “best of” lists) and instead, do whatever I want. . . . As it turns out, books are fun

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Readers Pick the Best Book of the Past 125 Years – The New York Times

Thousands of you voted, and chose a clear favorite: “To Kill a Mockingbird.” But the winner is only part of the story. Source: Readers Pick the Best Book of the Past 125 Years – The New York Times There’s so much to savor here that this warranted a post all its own.

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

When Aldous Huxley Opened the Doors of Perception An excerpt from the book American Trip: Set, Setting, and the Psychedelic Experience in the Twentieth Century by Ido Hartogsohn, assistant professor in the Graduate Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Bar Ilan University. To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be

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Colorful fireworks against a night sky with overlay: 2022

Welcome, 2022!

(Feature Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash ) After the debacle of 2021, I’ve been awaiting the arrival of 2022 with high ambivalence. When I woke up this morning and remembered that today is the first day of 2022, the phrase guarded optimism immediately came to mind.  So, in the spirit of guarded optimism, I

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Book covers: Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, The Lincoln Highway, Lincoln in the Bardo, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, At Swim-Two-Birds, The Searcher

6 Degrees of Separation

Kate has set as this month’s starting point a story that begins on New Year’s Eve – Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. Because I’m still figuring out what I want to do in terms of a reading plan this year, I’m going to look at my TBR shelves for inspiration here. Every book sitting

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stack of 3 books plus open book with pen. Title: In Memoriam

Notable Deaths of 2021

It always saddens me to post the annual list of literary figures we’ve lost during the current year, but the task is especially painful on a day that has seen the announcement of the death of Betty White. For many years I compiled an annual list of the obituaries of literary figures. But compiling the

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Discussion

I’m Signing Up for the 2022 Discussion Challenge!

I usually finish off the year with a plan for next year’s reading that includes my list of challenges, but this year I’m still figuring out how I want to move forward. However, one thing from the past that I want to continue is the annual Discussion Challenge. I’m aiming for a minimum of 12

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stack of 3 books plus open book with pen. Title: Literary Stories of the Year

The Biggest Literary Stories of 2021

Literary Hub has assembled an informative round-up of 2021’s biggest literary stories. They published it in three parts: The Biggest Literary Stories of the Year: 50 to 31 The Biggest Literary Stories of the Year: 30 to 11 The 10 Biggest Literary Stories of the Year Others got in on the “biggest literary events of

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stack of 3 books plus open book with pen. Title: The Best Books I Read in 2021

The Best Books I Read in 2021

I had intended to have a much fuller report of my 2021 reading to post, but time has caught up with me. So here’s the short version. I read 41 books this year, with a total of 13,139 pages.  Shortest book: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (164 pages)  Longest book: Second Generation by

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