Mary Daniels Brown

My mother always insisted that, as soon as I was old enough to sit up, she’d find me in my crib after my nap babbling away, with a Little Golden Book on my lap. I’ve had my nose in a book ever since. I grew up in a small town, with the tiny town library literally in my backyard. As an only child in an unhappy home, I found comfort and companionship in books. As an adult I wanted to be Harry Potter, although I admit I’m more Hermione. My life has been a series of research projects. Reading has taught me that human lives are deliciously messy and that “it’s complicated” isn’t a punchline.

stack of books and open notebook. Label: Quotation

On Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton, American Novelist (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) Wharton’s deepest concern was morality. She wrote about the struggle between the body and the mind, that battlefield from which morality emerges. Central to her work are stifled and illicit passions, manifested in divorce, adultery, incest, and illegitimacy. She wrote about the struggle to […]

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Thermo Fisher Scientific settles with family of Henrietta Lacks, whose HeLa cells uphold medicine Social justice achieved by a book! See The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Categories: Author News New England Noir: A Brief, Idiosyncratic History of a Literary Region The region is known for its literary output: six states, a

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Collage of book covers: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld; Possession by A.S. Byatt; The Gilded Hour by Sara Donati; The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow; 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami; The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger; Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

6 Degrees of Separation: Love Stories

I missed last month’s 6 Degrees because I was still on vacation in early July. But I’m back for this month’s exercise, which begins with Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld: With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love,

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book review

“The Art of X-Ray Reading”

I picked this book up because I interpreted the description to mean I’d get a refresher course in the kind of slow, close reading we spent our time on in grad school. Clark’s stated purpose is to help writers “learn their best moves” by observing how literary writers have used language to produce “the effects

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The Writers Who Went Undercover to Show America Its Ugly Side “In the 1940s, a series of books tried to use the conventions of detective fiction to expose the degree of prejudice in postwar America.” A history lesson from The Atlantic: In the years during and after World War II, the battle against fascism spread

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Discussion

What Do You Remember About Your Childhood Reading?

Or, The Power of Enchantment How much do you remember about reading in early childhood? I ask because I’m always bemused when I see other peoples’ statements about learning to read at age 3 or 4 and remembering the very moment they realized they could make sense of the squiggles on the page. I ask

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How the Essay and the Novel Inform and Influence Each Other Here’s an excerpt from Jane Smiley’s recently published collection of essays, The Questions That Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom (Heyday Books, 2023): Most of the essays in this book have been assignments—I am handed a topic and asked to reveal

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Discussion

Author Focus: Amalie Skram of Norway and Denmark

When you go on an organized tour while on a cruise, the emphasis of what you learn depends on the interests of your tour guide. Fortunately, on our two days in Bergen, Norway (the first and last days of our vacation), we had a knowledgable guide with an interest in the arts. He introduced us

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‘It’s not climate change, it’s everything change’: sci-fi authors take on the global crisis “Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy led the way. Now a new crop of novelists is putting the heating emergency at the forefront of their plots” Categories: Author News, Literary History Controversial book ‘Stamped’ added back into Pickens Co Schools libraries PICKENS

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