Category: Notebook
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Now’s a Good Time for a Dystopia
Today’s reading list features that stalwart genre of anxious times: the dystopia. I’ve tried to collect some newer and more unusual examples for this list, rather than the old standards that you see on every list. Not only are these novels prime escapist fare, but they serve as a helpful reminder that things could always […]
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12 Books to Diversify Your Reading
Sometimes we can get in a reading rut and find it difficult to break out of our comfort zones. But it’s a good idea to shake things up every now and then and read an author or a genre we normally wouldn’t consider, if only for the benefit of expanding our view of the world. […]
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When I Am Among the Trees
Photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels In difficult times, we turn to poetry. Hear Amanda Palmer reading Mary Oliver’s poem, “When I Am Among the Trees.”
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Golden Ages of Horror: Reading Elizabeth
About two years ago, I discovered Valancourt Books, which reissues out-of-print horror, generally from the 1970s and early 1980s, in really attractive slim trade paperbacks. My latest read from them was Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall (originally published under the pseudonym Jessica Hamilton). What a disturbing little book about a 14-year-girl who seems to be a complete sociopath […]
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Happy birthday, Mary Shelley and Frankenstein!
This year is the two-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, and today is also Mary Shelley’s birthday. So let’s celebrate this great novel and author with ten facts about Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s lover (later husband), the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, was friends with the poet Lord Byron (who both were not nearly as badass […]
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Reading angry women
“I have lived with that anger, on that anger, beneath that anger, on top of that anger … for most of my life.” – Audre Lord “Once upon a time / I had enough anger in me to crack crystal” – Kiki Petrosino “Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / […]
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Why I’m Done with “Classics” Written by Men
Beautiful books, but beware what lies within… I just finished reading The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, which reminded me strongly of another lesser known classic novel I read last year, Black Sun by Edward Abbey. Both novels were considered minor classics by authors I had heard of and wanted to read. I bought both books because they came in […]
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The Handmaid’s Tale…
Y’all may not have noticed, but I truly love Margaret Atwood. Living The Handmaid’s Tale: a real-life horror story. And, in case you didn’t realize, The Handmaid’s Tale is feminist. Margaret Atwood–high priestess of fiction, yes.
Shannon Turlington 