Just about a year ago I wrote what Notes in the Margin would be up to during 2024. Now, I’m happy with the way last year’s reading turned out, particularly how I ended the year with a sense of accomplishment rather than anxiety and disappointment. Therefore, I’m going to use the same approach to reading […]
2025: Another Year of Unplanned Reading Read More »
Jimmy Carter: Poet, Novelist, Memoirist, Philosopher “He wasn’t just prolific, publishing 32 books. His output also showed an unusual range that included memoirs and forays into historical fiction and even poetry.” The New York Times eulogizes President Jimmy Carter with emphasis on his writing: “Publishing 32 books over the course of his life, he wasn’t
Our starting book this month is the 2024 Booker winner, Orbital by Samantha Harvey. I’ve just started reading it. first degree The characters in Orbital are astronauts in a spacecraft circling the earth. Their perspective on the world is different than usual, as if they had zoomed out on a photograph. For Count Alexander Rostov,
6 Degrees of Separation Read More »
Here in the U.S. today is national science fiction day, observed annually in honor of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who was born on January 2, 1920. I didn’t read science fiction as a teenager or young adult. To the best of my recollection, I discovered science fiction through television rather than books. My introduction
Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned from “Star Trek” Read More »
When I posted about all the Best Books of 2024 by editors, publishers, and critics, Davida The Chocolate Lady wrote that she hated such lists and would much rather see lists of books that other book bloggers liked throughout the year. I immediately smacked myself on the forehead and shouted to the empty living room, “Of
Bloggers List the Best Books They Read in 2024 Read More »
Here’s the last gasp of the Best Books of 2024 theme. 10 Beloved Authors We Lost in 2024 Tertulia profiles 10 authors who died during 2024 and recommends one representative book for each. The 50 Biggest Literary Stories of 2024 From Literary Hub. These were the most-borrowed books from public libraries in 2024 NPR compiled
Miscellaneous 2024 Round-Ups Read More »
Goodreads has spoken. Here are my reading statistics for 2024. Pages read: 14,887 Books read: 41 Average book length: 363 pages Average book rating: 3.5 Shortest book: Lord of the Flies, 189 pages Longest book: The Covenant of Water, 724 pages What the Statistics Don’t Cover Irrespective of numbers, I had what I consider a
2024: My Year in Reading and Blogging Read More »
In past years, I’ve kept my best books list to a total of 15, usually a top ten list plus five honorable mentions. But this year’s list just didn’t fall out that way. Because I read a lot of good books throughout 2024, I’m putting them all together here while capping the total at 15.
The Best Books I Read in 2024 Read More »
Texas county reverses classification of Indigenous history book as fiction This controversy over the classification of a children’s Native American history book in a Texas county north of Houston occurred in October 2024. A Texas county on Tuesday reversed a decision to reclassify a children’s book on Native American history as fiction after the move
Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature Read More »
The U.S. has recorded over 32,000 whooping cough cases this year, compared with around 5,100 as of mid-December last year. Infants are most vulnerable to the bacterial infection. Source: Whooping cough cases reach highest level in a decade I had whooping cough as a 10-year-old back in the late 1950s. I almost died every time
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