Fiction

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

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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feature: Life Stories in Literature

#TopTenTuesday   Multigenerational Family Dramas 

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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stack of books and open notebook. Label: Quotation

The Power of Fiction

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

#TopTenTuesday   Completed Series I Wish Had More Books

Related Post: Authors/Series I Stopped Reading–For Whatever Reason Kinsey Millhone series by Sue Grafton Also known as the alphabet series. Sue Grafton began her career writing screenplays. But she had always been fascinated by mysteries. Between 1982 and 2017 she published 25 novels featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone, one of the first women investigators to

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

#TopTenTuesday   Books I Love That Were Written Over Ten Years Ago

I had such a hard time whittling down this list that I’ve added an honorable mention section at the end. The numbers on this list are not ranks, just a way of keeping count. 1. The Blind Assassin (2000) by Margaret Atwood (scroll down the linked page) 2. Where Are the Children? (1975) by Mary

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

What We Gain from a Good Bookstore “It’s a place whose real boundaries and character are much more than its physical dimensions.” “You may have heard that we’re experiencing a renaissance of the independent bookstore, but the situation is far from rosy,” writes Max Norman in this piece about how independent bookstores enhance communities. Category:

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

John Williams joins The [Washington] Post as books editor John will lead our award-winning nonfiction and fiction books team, hiring new writers and working with colleagues to reach new audiences. We believe in books coverage that revels in the life of the mind and big ideas and is also consumer-oriented, giving book lovers the information

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Discussion

Discussion: “Gone Girl” 10 Years Later

Introductory Discussion June 2022 marked the tenth anniversary of Gillian Flynn’s mega blockbuster novel Gone Girl. This anniversary prompted many looks back at the novel’s significance; for example: “A master class in marital manipulation, the influence of the novel continues to cascade through the category; to this day, every other thriller is pitched as “Gone

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Last Week's Links

Literary Links

With Rising Book Bans, Librarians Have Come Under Attack “Caustic fights over which books belong on the shelves have put librarians at the center of a bitter and widening culture war.” Not just books, but librarians themselves, have been verbally threatened and attacked as the number of censorship attacks increases across the U.S. Categories: Censorship,

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

#TopTenTuesday  Most Anticipated Books Releasing In the Second Half of 2022

Here are the top ten books I’m looking forward to that will be published between July 1 and December 31 2022.  Listed in order of publication. The It Girl by Ruth Ware Publication date: July 12 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One returns with an unputdownable mystery following a woman

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