Today's reading list is a roundup of badass women--but what does "badass" mean exactly? These are women who don't conform to the norms that have been set out for women as a whole. They may seem intimidating or--that worst of all literary sins--unlikable. These women follow their own path, make sometimes questionable choices, risk screwing … Continue reading A List of Badass Women
Notebook
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 … Continue reading Now’s a Good Time for a Dystopia
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. … Continue reading 12 Books to Diversify Your Reading
I'm stuck at home bored, like almost everyone else, so I thought I'd indulge in my favorite pastime and put together some reading lists! I see a lot of lists like this one on Electric Literature and Book Riot -- some of them really good, some of them just frankly a hodgepodge of books the … Continue reading Disaster Reading for Disastrous Times
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."
Time for an update of what I've been reading lately: three recent publications by women writers that are each, in their own way, unusual and engrossing reads. First up: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, her first novel since The Night Circus, which was a favorite of mine. With The Starless Sea, Morgenstern has written a deeply felt and … Continue reading What I’ve Been Reading: Books by Women
If you're a Generation X'er (or older), you may remember that golden age of horror during the 1970s and 1980s, when cheesy paperbacks with titles in red metallic fonts and lurid cover art were all over supermarket and drugstore racks. Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell (2017) is a nostalgia-inducing collection of these covers, as well … Continue reading For Horror Connoisseurs: Paperbacks from Hell
Synergy is a word that has been damaged by overuse, particularly in corporate communications where it is deployed as a buzz word devoid of real meaning. If I were editing a corporate communications document, I'd probably replace this word with a synonym because it is most likely meaningless jargon in that context. Which is a … Continue reading Word of the Day: Synergy
A recent episode of Hidden Brain podcast (NPR), Spoiler Alert! The Psychology of Surprise Endings, was a fascinating dive into why we love plot twists and we actually derive satisfaction from being fooled. It discusses two long-time favorite films, The Sixth Sense and The Unusual Suspects, and gives us insight into the ever-popular unreliable narrator.
This is a series of reviews of my favorite books published between 2010 and 2019. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (2013) Burial Rites is based on the true story of Agnes Magnusdottier, the last person to be executed in Iceland, in 1830. The story depicts Agnes's last weeks when a farming family is forced to take … Continue reading Favorite Books of the 2010s: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
