For the first installment of this undertaking, I focus on this post from May 29, 2010: Fictive Worlds and Real Brains: The Psychology of Reading This extended discussion of several articles I had read online is from the year before I received my doctorate in psychology. One of the areas I studied was the psychology […]
15 Years Ago on Notes in the Margin Read More »
Related Post: I’ve been blogging about books since the late 1990s. During that time I’ve thought a lot about why I blog but not so much about how—or rather, how I approach reviewing a book. I’ve put off writing this post for quite a while as I looked back over past reviews I’ve written, especially
How I Review Novels Read More »
Other posts in this series: Introduction Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which was the starting point for this month’s 6 Degrees of Separation post, was My Most Surprising Read of 2022. I can’t remember the last time a novel made me cry, but this one did. Thinking about why Zevin’s book hit me
12 Novels That Changed How I Read Fiction Read More »
This novel well deserves the recognition it received: ITW Thriller Award Nominee for Hardcover Novel (2021), Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Mystery/Thriller (2020), Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel (2021). Set in Los Angeles, it tells the stories of women who represent the outcasts, the marginalized and the expendable members of society. West
2 Novels About Communities Read More »
When I was going through all the “best books of 2022” prompts and lists, somewhere—and I can’t remember exactly where—I came across the question “What was your most surprising read of 2022?” Any other year that question probably wouldn’t have stuck with me because I read a lot of mysteries and thrillers and am therefore
My Most Surprising Read of 2022 Read More »
Today’s topic for #TopTenTuesday is comfort reads, “books or kinds of books you turn to when you need to escape.” I don’t exactly read to escape. I think that escape may be the result that occurs when I read, because I read primarily to immerse myself in a world different from my daily reality. But
#TopTenTuesday: 10 Memoirs That Taught Me the Power of Life Stories Read More »
“There are many reasons I love novels with multiple narratives. In novels where the events are filtered through the consciousness of a single ‘reliable’ narrator, I often wonder; is this the whole story? What could be missing here? Truth is often a multiplicity of perspectives, and sometimes the more viewpoints and versions of events there
5 Effective Multiple-Perspective Novels Read More »
Looking over some blogging resources recently reminded me that the first question would-be bloggers are encouraged to consider is why they blog. But as soon as I started to dismiss this directive as so obvious as to not merit consideration, I realized that, although I’ve certainly answered this question in my own mind, I’ve never
Related Articles: I suspect that a feeling for stories, for narrative, is a universal human disposition, going with our powers of language, consciousness of self, and autobiographical memory. —Oliver Sacks Introduction I was, like lots of other readers, bowled over by Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl when I read it shortly after its publication in
Announcing Life Stories in Literature 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
How to Recognize an Unreliable Narrator Read More »
