This was an interesting reading year for me. I read less than I have in the past couple of years, probably in part due to the easing of pandemic limitations and the return of busyness that came with it. But I also seemed to hit the distracted malaise this year that many described having earlier … Continue reading 2022 Reading List
Fantasy Fiction
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
‘The Midnight Library’ is Low-Key Cli-Fi
Matt Haig's The Midnight Library scratches a lot of itches—speculative fiction, reckoning with life choices, learning how to human. But amongst those threads, I propose that The Midnight Library functions as low-key cli-fi, a.k.a. "climate fiction," a narrative exploring the impacts of global warming. *barely spoilery spoilers for The Midnight Library and mild content warning … Continue reading ‘The Midnight Library’ is Low-Key Cli-Fi
Notions, January 2021 Edition
This is the time of year I realize just how much dark time we still have to go. Work is busy. The outside is dark and dreary. And I mostly want to just curl up with a book. Alas. While we wait for spring, here are some of the fun, interesting, and/or gorgeous things I've … Continue reading Notions, January 2021 Edition
2020 Reading List – The Final
In one of the two holiday movies I watch without fail, It's a Wonderful Life, lead character George Bailey is a man who has always resented his meagre, small town life until he gets a chance to see what said town would have been like if he'd never been born. George discovers that he actually … Continue reading 2020 Reading List – The Final
The Wheelhouse Project – New Addition! – Tantalizing Taste Books
I know I promised some hot Jane Austen content. I planned for this focus because I'm currently working my way through a history of five female abstract impressionist painters that, while mesmerizing, is a 700-page beast of a book. But last weekend I took a break from the behemoth because a slim, YA fantasy needed … Continue reading The Wheelhouse Project – New Addition! – Tantalizing Taste Books
The Wheelhouse Project: Language
Go here for an introduction to the Wheelhouse Project. Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline may at first glance seem like an odd pick for the "language" wheelhouse. This novel focuses on Joan, a First Nations Métis woman, whose husband Victor stormed out of the house after a fight a year ago and disappeared. Joan has been … Continue reading The Wheelhouse Project: Language
A Conversation about ‘Crossings” by Alex Landragin
In a first for this site, I recorded a conversation with my brilliant, wonderful friend Dr. Martina Shabram about the recently-released novel Crossings by Alex Landragin. This novel has a formal innovation where you can read it straight through as three free-standing but interconnected novellas (Martina's way) or via the "Baroness method," which tells you … Continue reading A Conversation about ‘Crossings” by Alex Landragin
Summertime Reading
What to do when you write about books and the reading life, you have lots of good books to choose from, and yet you find yourself without much inspired to say about them? I find myself in this predicament, whether from the ongoing pandemic, the lure of summertime, the dumpster fire state of the world, … Continue reading Summertime Reading
The Night is Dark and Full of Wonders: The Winternight Trilogy
Every once in a while a book or —even better—a series of books comes along to take you out of yourself. Such a series is the Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden. At first glance, the structure of these books, particularly the first one, The Bear and the Nightingale, feels familiar. Vasilisa "Vasya" Petrovna runs wild … Continue reading The Night is Dark and Full of Wonders: The Winternight Trilogy
Dogs, Coffee, & Books 