Book Recommendations

Historic photo: black and white image of a crowd of women suffragettes dressed in white marching on a city street lined by men in dark suits.

2 Novels to Read for Women’s History Month

In honor of International Women’s Day today, here are two novels that feature strong women. I reread the first 11 pages of this paperback to refresh my memory before writing this review. And immediately, I was right back as a passenger on the wild ride of this fictional world. The first clue to the nature […]

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Women's History Month

Reading Lists for Women’s History Month

Women’s History Month: great histories written by women 5 novels to help you celebrate Women’s History Month A list of “captivating novels to celebrate Women’s History Month,” by Jordan Snowden for The Seattle Times. Our Favorite Female Detectives in Crime Fiction 10 favorite books for Women’s History Month! 10 Female Detectives Uncovering Hidden Mysteries Fierce

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A stack of 3 closed books, next to an open notebook on which rests a ballpoint pen. Text: Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature

Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature

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

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

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

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

Shane’s Lot: How a 1949 Gun-Toting Loner Still Rides Through American Literature Writer Maria Hummel examines how Shane, the gunslinger introduced in Jack Schaefer’s 1949 novel Rider from Nowhere, has lived on in American popular culture. Although Shane’s worldview is dated, the novel projects the timeless quest of innocence in our bloody world. Shane altered

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A stack of 3 closed books (left); an open notebook with a pen on top (right). Title: The Best Books I Read in 2023

The Best Books I Read in 2023

I was very picky about the books I chose to read this year. As a result, I read a lot of good books—so many that putting together this list was an agonizing process. In past years, I’ve kept my best books list to a total of 15, usually a top ten list plus five honorable

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Monthly calendar for December 2023, with title: My Big, Year-End Catch-Up Post

My Big, Year-End Catch-Up Post

Usually Notes in the Margin overflows with stories during December that deal with everything book-related. But we were traveling from mid-September to mid-December.  In an effort to catch up with everything I missed during that time, here’s a compendium of literary topics. The Ultimate Best Books of 2023 List “Reading All the Lists So You

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Books you can read in one day or less

Books You Can Read in One Day

Rose/House by Arkady Martine Clockwork by Philip Pullman  Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls The Last Book I Read in One Sitting: 16 Readers Share 20 Books You Can Read in One Sitting 7 Bite-Size Books That Pack a Powerful Punch 10 Epic Books Under 250 pages 10 One-Sitting Reads for a Well-Deserved Lazy Day Some

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

Conservative book ban push fuels library exodus from national association that stands up for books This summer, the state libraries in Montana, Missouri and Texas and the local library in Midland, Texas, announced they’re leaving the ALA, with possibly more to come. Right-wing lawmakers in at least nine other states — Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana,

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

The Hours at 25: The book that changed how we see Virginia Woolf The 2002 film version of Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours “has come to define the popular image of Virginia Woolf in the 21st Century,” writes Lillian Crawford. The Hours is “a modern reinterpretation of Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs Dalloway.” Crawford explains how

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