“Native Son” was on a reading list recommended by my University English department and since I’ve read maybe 5 African American novelists in my entire life, I felt it was time to start expanding my reading base. I made the mistake of reading the introduction first instead of just jumping into the novel, which ruined the experience for me a little since it gave away most of the plot and led me to expect a very different story than the one I actually read. […]
“Finding Fantasy, Again”
Short story is not my normal genre. But I’m trying to expand my readership, and I like fantasy, so I took the plunge and bought “Neverland’s Library.” The compilation was a neat idea, where 21 different fantasy authors were asked to write a short story that captured the pure fantasy that we know and experience as children. Ultimately, it does its job. It was good; and I feel bad saying that because there were 4 stories in the collection that totally blew my socks off […]
“To Be a Godey’s Lady….”
In my continual search for quantitative research on Godey’s Lady’s Book, I came across “Mr. Godey’s Ladies: Being a Mosaic of Fashions and Fancies” by Robert Kunciov, which after the disappointment of the “Sarah Josepha Hale” book, I was leery. I was pleasantly surprised however, by the wonderful reproductions and a few color plates of the original etchings, as well as the author’s selections of excerpts from the original text. He begins with a chronology of the types of fashions, detailing the trends, colors, and […]
Everything History Should Not Be
I’m so angry that THIS was my half-cannon ball….. I’m working on researching “Godey’s Lady’s Book” for an annual historic fashion show I run, and there’s a striking lack of historical documentation about this famous magazine other than manually plowing through 60 years worth of the magazine itself, and frankly, I don’t have that kind of time. So I thought I would do a bit of digging about the founder and his editor, Sarah Hale, to shed some light on the gaping holes I have […]
“We lie for a living, we shouldn’t lie to ourselves.”
At its core, “Republic of Thieves” is really a character study of Locke, which after being with him for two books is poignantly beautiful. He emerges out of the white-collar criminal into Locke the Human. While we’ve seen snippets and snapshots of his humanity throughout the first 2 novels, Locke’s deepening relationship with Jean, and Sabetha’s return to his life brings out a push-pull to his character that we haven’t seen before. As in his previous books, Lynch weaves the Bastards’ childhood stories in with their […]
Sh*tting in Space: It’s a Problem….
Knowing Mary Roach’s work very well from her amazing first publication, Stiff, (side note, if you haven’t read Stiff, you need to. Now. Immediately! I’ve even put a handy link here! Stiff) I was excited to jump into the world of rockets and space food to find out what gets us out into the deep void, and I was not disappointed! In her usual no-holds-barred style, Roach takes us on a journey through all the nuances (particularly the ones no one wants to talk about) […]