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 3 books plus open book with pen. Title: Top Ten Tuesday

#TopTenTuesday Books with Geographical Terms in the Title

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The topic for this week is Books with Geographical Terms in the Title (for example: mountain, island, latitude/longitude, ash, bay, beach, border, canyon, cape, city, cliff, coast, country, desert, epicenter, hamlet, highway, jungle, ocean, park, sea, shore, tide, valley, etc.) Here are 11 novels from my reading database. Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark The Island […]

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

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4 Essential Books About Queen Elizabeth II Talk about life stories. Queen Elizabeth II certainly had one. Kirkus Reviews suggests some books for those of us wanting to read about it. Reimagining the Homeland Through Speculative Fiction Speculative fiction as a genre is conducive to diasporic literature, particularly for Palestinian writers, because it combines several

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Peter Straub on Horror

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“. . . telling stories and writing fiction is a way of managing and exploring my own impulses and emotions. I’m not at the mercy of my terrors, my shame. I push the dredged-up emotions into shapes that are enjoyable in the end, even if their content seems violent or disturbing.” — novelist and poet

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#TopTenTuesday 20 Pandemic Reviews I Have Yet to Write

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(Feature photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash) Today’s assigned topic is Books I Loved So Much I Had to Get a Copy for My Personal Library. But I don’t work that way. If I’m reading a library book, I take the notes I’ll need from the book before I return it. I don’t think just

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

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5 Books that Celebrate Books This is a list of stories that pay homage to the world of books; whether through the comfort and sanctuary of libraries, the careful crafting of a narrative, or the mysticism and power of books themselves, each contain different versions of the same awe and appreciation of words, stories and

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Book covers: The Pigman by Paul Zindel, I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb, A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss

6 Degrees of Separation

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This month’s assignment is to start with the book that we ended with last month. That was The Pig Man by Paul Zindel, which I described as a “seminal work in the movement to portray teenagers and their lives realistically (well before the designation young adult literature came into use).” first degree Another author who

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#TopTenTuesday   Multigenerational Family Dramas 

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Today’s assigned topic is a freebie related to school. But I’ve decided to go off on a tangent that will help me set up my next reading project. And home is at the heart of much of the fiction that I most like to read. Novels that treat both the joys and the sorrows that

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

Book Recommendations, Last Week's Links, Libraries, Life Stories in Literature, List, Literary Criticism, Literary History, Literature & Culture, Literature & Psychology, Older Adults in Literature, Reading, Writing / By / /

Good Company: Depictions of Older Women in Literature Jane Campbell has some reading recommendations: For some time, I have been relishing literature that offers wonderfully varying depictions of old women. They are good company. These are pieces that expose the cruelty inflicted on older women and that impress me with their capacity to pursue the

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The Power of Fiction

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“fiction is not only one of the great escapes from the “real world” but also one of the great reflections of it. A good novel can contextualize a moment in history and bring us to understand or accept it with more clarity. Reading can even be a humbling experience, allowing us to discover new perspectives

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