On Reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses As a Military Spouse If you’ve forgotten, or if you didn’t know in the first place, I was a classics major (B.A. and M.A. in Latin), and that explains why I’m always drawn to any article whose author expresses love for any aspect of this area of study. Here Jehanne Dubrow […]
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Power and Punishment: Using the Language of Fantasy to Subvert Real-Life Oppression Power lies at the heart of all fantasy, written or imagined. To craft a novel of the genre is to visualize an expression of power and assign it to factions that will then weave and warp over the course of the story. Yet,
The Novel I’m Searching For “Five years after the pandemic, I’m holding out for a story that doesn’t just describe our experience, but transforms it.” Novelist Lily Meyer, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, writes that early literature about the COVID-19 pandemic aimed at giving people a sense of control by mentioning details of how
My reading intentions for March were interrupted by the sudden death of my cousin in New Hampshire, an event that hit me more heavily than I thought it would. Waiting to hear about funeral arrangements and then the actual traveling knocked me out of commission for about two weeks. I therefore have only two books
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The Real Cognitive Neuroscience Behind Severance I haven’t caught up with the second season of Severance yet, but I will because I’m interested in both the dichotomy of inside vs. outside stories and the use of science fiction elements to portray aspects of human existence. In this article two neuroscientists explore the question “Can a
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Culture wars: Trump’s takeover of arts is straight from the dictator playbook “US president’s attempt to control or dismantle cultural institutions plays into a long history of authoritarians using arts to push their agenda” Sorry not sorry: Prepare to be harangued for the next 4 years. We’ve moved way past politics now here in the
I didn’t get much reading done in February. I only read two novels, The Three Lives of Cate Kay, which I’ve already reviewed, and The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight, which I review below. Last month I promised a later review of The Last Russian Doll by Kristen Loesch, which I read
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For years, the identity of bestselling author Cate Kay was a closely guarded secret; only two people knew the author’s real name. But we, the readers of this novel by Kate Fagan masquerading as a memoir by Cate Kay, know the truth from the opening pages: Anne Marie Callahan —> Annie —> Cass Ford —>
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A Classic Chronicle of Korean America: On Kim Ronyoung’s Clay Walls “David S. Cho Explores Ideas of Homeland, Belonging and Identity in a Pioneering Contribution to Asian American Literature” Novels that introduce us to people from cultures other than our own contribute to human understanding in a global context. Clay Walls is a truly pioneering
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Related Post: Eleanor Bennett has died and left behind with her lawyer, Charles Mitch, a series of recordings for her son, Byron, and his younger sister, Benny (short for Benedetta) to listen to. Eleanor insisted that they listen to the recordings together, and the accompanying note is directed to B and B, a term she
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