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.

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GOODREADS HACKS: GET A DNF SHELF, MARK REREADS, AND MORE If you find it hard to keep up with all the cool kids who use Goodreads to track their reading, this article will put you in the know about some of the more esoteric aspects. The main subject here is how to create a DNF […]

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Why we need to stop forcing ourselves to finish books we hate When I was younger, I felt that I had to finish every book I started. But some time around my 40th birthday I realized that I had probably completed about half my life and no longer had the luxury of time to waste

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Authors/Series I Stopped Reading–For Whatever Reason

What a time-consuming yet fruitful project this turned into. When I started looking back at my long-term reading log for the 6 Degrees of Separation meme, I discovered a lot of authors and/or series that I had begun to enjoy in the past but had not kept up with more recently. Many of these authors and

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WHY READ FICTION IN THIS AGE OF ATROCITY? Content Warning: This piece discusses recent sexual assault headlines. I want to be as frank with you as is possible: it is increasingly hard for me to find joy or purpose in reading lately, specifically novels. I find myself asking, why read fiction at all when the

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6 Degrees of Separation

Here’s my entry in Kate’s 6 Degrees of Separation Meme from her blog, Books Are My Favourite and Best. Here’s how it works: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose

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Review: “Final Girls” by Riley Sager

Final Girls by Riley Sager  Penguin Audio, 2017  Narrated by Erin Bennett and Hillary Huber Ten years ago Quincy Carpenter ran from the woods covered in blood—the sole survivor of five young people vacationing in a secluded rental cottage. That experience made her a member of a group no one volunteers to join—Final Girls, the

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SCI-FI DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DEPRESSING: WELCOME TO SOLARPUNK Welcome to solarpunk, a new genre within science fiction that is a reaction against the perceived pessimism of present-day sci-fi and hopes to bring optimistic stories about the future with the aim of encouraging people to change the present. The first book that explicitly identified as

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man reading a big book

The 20 Longest Books I Own

This is not my original idea. A while back Madame Writer posted her list. She got me thinking that, given my interest in big books, I should compile my own list. Once I got started compiling a list, grabbing all the fattest books off my shelves became a compulsion. Consequently, so as not to waste all

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Richard Russo: On the Moral Power of Regret One of the most memorable novels I’ve ever read is Richard Russo’s Empire Falls (2001). When I came across this essay by Russo, I knew I had to stop and take the time to settle in with it. I hope you learn from it as much as

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