Posts
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Emily Hauser’s brilliant book “Penelope’s Bones” has a place of note on the shelf beside my copies of Natalie Haynes’ “Pandora’s Jar” and Divine Might.” Hauser has presented her readers with a detailed study of figures from Homer’s works that hover in the background of his heroes’ lives: the women of legend. The women not…
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As a writer and book lover, I was very excited to read Emily Hodgson Anderson’s “Shadow Work: Loneliness and the Literary Life.” While I thought this book was very good and definitely worth reading–especially for writers–I didn’t love it. Some sections failed to hold my interest; however, other sections had me pausing, considering, rereading, and…
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Hello Friends! Thank you to all of you who come back again and again to read my rambling book posts, I appreciate every one of you. This is the time of year that I post a monster list of books I plan to read over the summer, my self-appointed Summer Reading List. There are 14…
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Jane Eyre is my absolute favorite book. I admire the work of all of the Brontes, and I often wonder what else they might have produced had they not died so young. This book is packed with information, some of it new to me and presented from a viewpoint I hadn’t considered previously. The only…
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Poetry is an art form that is personal to both the writer and the reader; each has their own interpretation of the words and thoughts that are written. As a poet, I understand that readers may not necessarily relate to my words in the same manner that I do. That being said, I believe that…
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Gruesome as it may sound, I love the Borden mystery (and I wholly believe that Lizzie did, in fact, murder her father and stepmother.) I was really looking forward to this book; unfortunately it didn’t really convey any emotion or suspense. The writing is very stilted, and the characters very flat. I have no doubt…
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Jen Schneider’s On (Pantry) Stock & (Kitchen) Timers is a unique collection of a stream-of-consciousness essays and poems that you wouldn’t think would work but does in an enchanting, eye-catching, made-you-look kind of way. Schneider’s words are a collage of thought that walks readers through a maze of sensation/emotion/confusion/questing. This collection deserves a re-read to…
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There are books you love, and then there are books that become a part of you, that you pick up over and over because you want to hold them, because you want to feel their weight and touch the pages covered in the words that mean so much to you. The covers are soft, ragged-edged…
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Foreign Fruit by Katie Goh is an outstanding book. I was expecting a microhistory about oranges, or citrus fruit as a whole; I was not expecting an incredibly well-researched social history about culture, society, belonging, searching for one’s place in the world, biases, acceptance, food cultivation, and environmentalism (among other topics). Goh’s book takes readers…
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Murder Ballads by Katy Horan is a treat for fans of Dark Folklore and Gothic themes (that’s a gruesome way to begin a review, isn’t it?). I was already familiar with “The Death of Queen Jane” and “The Twa Swans” thanks to Loreena McKennitt. Horan included a list of recordings, so readers can immerse themselves…
This is the Mask: A Book Blog 