“One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” “There’s no accounting for taste.” “Different strokes for different folks.” I occasionally see the novel Geek Love by Katherine Dunn listed on someone’s list of best novels ever read. I understand that the novel’s themes of family, love, and normality make it appeal to a lot of people, […]
Your Favorite Book Might Be My DNF . . . and Vice Versa Read More »
What I Learned from COVID-19 I keep reading things like “I can’t wait to be done with 2020 and move on to 2021.” Do most people truly believe that merely taking one calendar off the wall and hanging up another one is going to change their day-to-day existence? Such magical thinking. Reality doesn’t work that
My Reading & Writing Goals for 2021 Read More »
Introduction Ever since I started Notes in the Margin back in the late 1990s, I’ve been saying that I don’t like, and therefore don’t read, horror literature, particularly books about vampires, werewolves, and zombies. However, lately I’ve read several articles about horror that have convinced me it might be time for me to re-examine my
Re-Examining My Stance on Horror Read More »
I occasionally come across articles criticizing Goodreads. The latest one is “Why Goodreads is bad for books.” I’m always surprised at the vehemence with which some people criticize Goodreads. Sure, the platform is owned by one of the biggest retailers on the planet and therefore doesn’t have much incentive to improve. But as I read this
How I Use Goodreads Read More »
Here’s a question that comes up periodically on literary sites: I’m having trouble reading books with unreliable narrators. How exactly do you know a narrator is unreliable? When I saw the question again recently, I realized that, although the question gets asked a lot, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an answer. It’s a hard
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Related Post: Classics Club Spin #23 Earlier this month the Classics Club announced a return of its spin, in which we make a numbered list of books, then read the book on our list with the number chosen at random. Initially I welcomed the exercise, because I have been having trouble reading and writing in
CC Spin #23: A Change of Plan Read More »
Introduction I came upon Adam O’Fallon Price’s article The Subjective Mood, in which he laments the lack of moral depth in current fiction, back in February. I included it in a literary-links round-up, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it because I find a lot of moral depth in most of the fiction I read.
Moral Depth in Current Fiction Read More »
Coronavirus Diaries: I Own a Bookstore. I Don’t Know How Much Longer We Can Survive. I live in Tacoma, WA, about 30 miles south of Seattle, the epicenter of the coronavirus influx into the United States. This article in Slate therefore caught my eye and seems appropriate to pass on since it’s about books. Laurie
Life in an Independent Bookstore Near Seattle Read More »
Thanks to these two bloggers for sponsoring the 2020 Blog Discussion Challenge: Nicole at Feed Your Fiction Addiction Shannon at It Starts at Midnight You can join the discussion challenge at any time during 2020 by clicking on either link above. Which is more important in fiction: plot or character? Novels that engage in complex
The Interplay of Plot and Character in Fiction Read More »
Thanks to these two bloggers for sponsoring the 2020 Blog Discussion Challenge: Nicole at Feed Your Fiction Addiction Shannon at It Starts at Midnight You can join the discussion challenge at any time during 2020 by clicking on either link above. As a subgenre of the mystery or detective-fiction genre, the locked-room mystery, which originated
Is the Locked-Room Mystery Obsolete? Read More »
