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.

Where are the voices of indigenous peoples in the Thanksgiving story?

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In my research and experience as a teacher educator, I have found social studies curricular materials (textbooks and state standards) routinely place indigenous peoples in a troubling narrative that promotes “Manifest Destiny” – the belief that the creation of the United States and the dominance of white American culture were destined and that the costs […]

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stack of books and open notebook. Label: Quotation

Why ‘Gilmore Girls’ Endures – The New York Times

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Sherman-Palladino picked Graham for the part of Lorelai over several more well-known actors, at least partly for her literary acumen. “She’s the first actress that pronounced the name ‘Kerouac’ correctly,” Sherman-Palladino told her husband after seeing her. Source: Why ‘Gilmore Girls’ Endures – The New York Times

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See What the World’s Reading Habits Look Like in 2020 The editing and proofreading service Global English Editing gathered statistics from various sources, including Pew Research and Amazon’s bestsellers page, that demonstrate how the world’s reading habits changed over the course of 2020: “35 percent of web users worldwide reported reading more during the pandemic,

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The Golden Age of Book Adaptations for TV Andrew Neiderman, the author of 46 thrillers who has written as V.C. Andrews for over 34 years, says, “The pandemic has brought on a new age of book-to-series adaptations, and with it novelists have found not only new sources of income but greater satisfaction in how their

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The 50 Greatest Apocalypse Novels “Apropos of . . . Nothing” I’m including this list here because, really, how could I not? How many of these have you read? I’ve read five, and I have two more on the top of my TBR pile. I think that’s pretty good, given that I usually avoid most

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Covers: Madam, Will You Talk? Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca? At Home in Mitford, Long Bright River, The Better Liar, Penmarric, The House on the Strand

6 Degrees of Separation: Life Replete with Questions and Drama

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This month is a wild card: We are to start with the book we’ve ended a previous chain with, and continue from there.  I’ve decided to start with the final book from a 6 Degrees of Separation post I did over the summer: Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart. 1. Another novel with a

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Daylight saving time ends this weekend: Don’t let ‘fall back’ lure you into depression | The Seattle Times

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As we prepare to turn the clocks back an hour on Sunday morning, experts in winter depression say the loss of daylight — just as coronavirus infections start to spike again and election tension comes to a head — could make this an unusually difficult stretch. Source: Daylight saving time ends this weekend: Don’t let

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Mixing Genres Is All About Messing with Structure “Knowing what people are expecting allows you to subvert the trope. Expectation is its own red herring, built right into your reader.” Stuart Turton, author of the brilliant The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and newly released The Devil and The Dark Water, admits, “I’m obsessed by

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spooky looking house, "Happy Halloween"

Happy Halloween!

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Because I was having trouble cranking up much enthusiasm for Halloween this year, here’s a collection of items I’ve collected. I hope you’ll find something here to help you get into this weekend’s holiday spirit. Read What You Need: 9 Gothic Novels for Every Mood This is the one that first inspired me. Did you

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The Best Time Travel Books Annalee Newitz is both a science journalist and a science fiction writer who uses science to spur investigations into the nature of human existence. Newitz says science fiction is “less teaching people about how science works, and more about teaching people how history works.”  Newitz uses the version of time

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