Hello, dear Fellow Travelers. I am going to be putting the blog on a brief hiatus while I focus on a busy time at my work as well as consider the future shape and focus of this space. Hope you're reading something fun, inspiring, and/or expanding!
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To Expand the World or to Not Expand the World, That is the Question: On Nghi Vo’s ‘The Chosen and the Beautiful’ Among Others
I have been known to bristle at an author (or other creator) expanding their created world. I first felt this reaction when I learned that William Faulkner filled out the rest of the characters' biographies after the end of events in The Sound and the Fury. (They were, as you might expect, universally miserable.) It … Continue reading To Expand the World or to Not Expand the World, That is the Question: On Nghi Vo’s ‘The Chosen and the Beautiful’ Among Others
The Wo-Man-Moth, for Eric
"Love should be put into action!" screamed the old hermit.Across the pond an echo tried and tried to confirm it.—Elizabeth Bishop, "Chemin de Fer" I have a near relation in the hospital with COVID-19, someone dear but also estranged. However, this is not about him. It's about what this person's being in the hospital stirs … Continue reading The Wo-Man-Moth, for Eric
Inside Our Very Bones: The Essence of Cli-Fi
Since my last, non-bookish post on the IPCC report struck a chord, I'm going to talk this week about two novels that engage with a warming world, books that fall under the umbrella category of "climate fiction," a.k.a. "cli-fi." Both of them use the word "marrow" in the title, a suggestion of how they are … Continue reading Inside Our Very Bones: The Essence of Cli-Fi
Going Off Book: What to Do With the New IPCC Report
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a new report today and, as expected, it's pretty bad. (This is me having read the NYTimes reporting, not the report.) It also includes an interactive atlas so you can see how the changing climate will affect your region. How should one respond to this information? Feel … Continue reading Going Off Book: What to Do With the New IPCC Report
Notions, the “Revisiting the Book is Always Better” edition or ‘Shadow and Bone’ redux
Early in the summer I wrote of my love for the Netflix adaptation of Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, part of the "Grishaverse," and how I was glad to have gotten to the show before reading the book(s) because "the book is always better." Well, I have now read the first book in the series … Continue reading Notions, the “Revisiting the Book is Always Better” edition or ‘Shadow and Bone’ redux
A Strange Paradise Indeed: Review of ‘What Strange Paradise’ by Omar El Akkad
A little boy washed up on an alien shore. A teenage girl lonely and unloved in a house on a hill. Can she save him from monsters? Such is the premise, in one sense, of Omar El Akkad's second novel, What Strange Paradise. It has fairy tale bones—children in dangerous situations, helping each other, facing … Continue reading A Strange Paradise Indeed: Review of ‘What Strange Paradise’ by Omar El Akkad
2021 Reading – Mid-Year Review
Despite a few "schmeh" moments, it's been a good year for reading. (When is it not? Because books are best.) I started out the year with Stephen Graham Jones' remarkable The Only Good Indians and since then have wound my way through everything from poetry to essays, reimaginings of myths to new stories that feel … Continue reading 2021 Reading – Mid-Year Review
The Beginning of Something
Those of us who were readers of that one series with the dragons and the epic betrayals and the television adaptation that collapsed in on the black hole of its own juggernaut, know what it means to be disappointed. The last book published in that series, which was definitely not the last book in the … Continue reading The Beginning of Something
Too Many Books! How to cope with a large TBR pile
If someone would pay me to read books and talk about them, I would 100% take that job. But they won't. And even if they did, it would still be impossible for me to read all the books I want to read at any given time. There's too many of them! Which is why I … Continue reading Too Many Books! How to cope with a large TBR pile
