Category: Reading
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Recommended Reading: Generation Loss
Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand — Cass Neary was once a young photographer on the burgeoning punk scene who made a name for herself with a ground-breaking book, but a couple of decades later, she’s burnt out, damaged, and still working in the storeroom at the Strand bookstore. A friend gives her a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interview…
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Retreating into reading: The refuge of older books
Lately, I have been turning to older novels for my reading, as a means of escape from the stresses of being alive, here, in 2017. Older books offer a unique form of immersion in another time and place, as actually lived by the writer, rather than as imagined by a writer conjuring up a historical time…
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Recommended Reading: When We Were Animals
In a small town somewhere in America, when the children reach adolescence, they breach. On the nights of the full moon, they give in fully to instinct and run wild and naked in the streets. Everyone else stays indoors. There is sex, there is violence; anything can happen, and almost everything is allowed. Lumen Fowler,…
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Inspirations…
The Women’s March was truly inspiring. I took part in my own small way. Our small North Carolina town had 1,500 people turn out. I was gobsmacked, because we are just not that big a town. There were 17,000 people marching in Raleigh. Here are some wonderful photos of the marchers around the world. What…
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Recommended Reading: Hag-Seed
Hag-Seed is Margaret Atwood’s contribution to the Hogarth Shakespeare series, which are retellings of Shakespeare plays set in contemporary times. (Previously, I read The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterston, also in this series.) Atwood takes on one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, The Tempest, locating it in the world of small-time Canadian politics. Felix…
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Inspirations…
The Women’s March on Washington is what is inspiring me right now. It started out as just an idea following on the surprising election results and has now grown, grassroots-style, into the largest protest and demonstration to take place in response to the inauguration. The march is for everyone, regardless of gender identity, who believes…
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Recommended Reading: The Long and Faraway Gone
The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney follows two characters–only slightly connected–who are both from Oklahoma City and are both struggling to get past unresolved mysteries from their youth. Wyatt, now a private investigator living in Las Vegas, returns to Oklahoma City as a favor for a friend to find out who is harassing a woman…
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Best Reads of 2016
An annual tradition with me is choosing my top 5 reads of the year–not necessarily books that were published during the year, but books that I read and stayed with me, that stood out above the crowd. This year’s roundup is a varied assortment, but I highly recommend them all. 1. A Head Full of…
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Recommended Reading: Three creepy reads for October
October always gets me in the mood to give myself the creeps. I’ve been behind in posting book recommendations lately, so here are three recs for the price of one, all guaranteed to make you shiver. First up is The Three by South African writer Sarah Lotz. Four planes crash simultaneously in different parts of the world, three…
Shannon Turlington 