Tag: Classics
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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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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: Ceremony
Ceremony by Leslie Silko is a 1970s classic of Native American literature, a slow but powerful read. Tayo returns home to the Laguna Pueblo reservation from World War II suffering from PTSD and attempts to cure himself by reconnecting with the traditional ceremonies of his people. This lovely cover is for the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition.
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A foundational reading list…
I promise that this is the absolute last reading list I will post. Ha ha, no. What if you are starting your reading completely from scratch? What should you read to have a good foundation on which your future reading will rest? What are those books that sparked legions of imitators and inserted themselves permanently…
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Recommended reading: The Expendable Man
This week I’m recommending The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes, a crime noir classic recently reissued by New York Review Books. A young doctor driving from California to a family wedding in Phoenix, Arizona, sees a teenage girl hitchhiking on a desert road and stops to pick her up, setting in motion a chain of events that…
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Recommended Reading: The Bloody Chamber
I’m recommending a hidden classic this week: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Carter gives familiar fairy tales a feminist twist. The stories revolve around the theme of young women (and sometimes men) crossing the threshold into adulthood, generally through sexual experiences. Penguin has some beautiful editions, and this is one of them.
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Halloween picks: The Scariest books
I usually like to get in the Halloween spirit by reading a scary book or two. This year, my top pick is NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. If you like Stephen King, you’ll love this book by his son. Not only does it read like King, but it reads like King at his absolute best–one of those great big…
Shannon Turlington 