Where is the girl, who by the boatman’s door, Above the locks, above the boating throng, Unmoor’d our skiff when through the Wytham flats, Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among And darting swallows and light water-gnats, We track’d the shy Thames shore? (From Matthew Arnold’s “Thyrsis” (1865) , set around Oxford.) More detective fiction! But this time it’s actually from the interwar period–the Golden Age–rather than just being set there. An all-female Oxford college, full of clever, high-spirited girls with enough time […]
My Summer Reading is Humming Along
Every summer I bring home a bag or box full of books from our school library. I spend the summer reading so that I have plenty of recommendations for the kids when school starts back in the fall. My first read for the summer was The Humming Room by Ellen Potter. The description caught my attention when I was doing book orders this past year, and I found a book trailer that caught the kids’ attention when I showed it at school. So, with my […]
Like father, like son
I mentioned in my review of Horns last year that if I had Stephen King for a father, I wouldn’t have been a writer for love nor money. The shadow he casts is impressive, to say the least (and Mr Mercedes is imminent, about which I am very excited). So if it were me, the prospect would have been too daunting to undertake. But Hill dropped his family name and tried for as long as possible to keep his origins out of the press. It wasn’t that long, since […]
#YesAllWomen –The Novel
I happened to be reading The Handmaid’s Tale when the story about the UCSB shooting spree hit the news. By now, most likely you’ve read that the shooter hated women because he couldn’t get a date and that he left behind a “manifesto” and many videos in which he presented his misogynistic ideas. In response, and as an empowerment for women, the hashtag #YesAllWomen has gone viral, with women and men speaking up and speaking out against the culture that creates men like the shooter. […]
Animal Farm meets Hitchhiker’s Guide; Hilarity Ensues
In an effort to not make this review longer than the book itself, I will just say that The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil is a story that could have been written by the love child of George Orwell and Douglas Adams. George Saunders’ flawless writing will remind readers of Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but his themes echo the sly political satire of Orwell. Mrs Smith Reads The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders
This Book Was Delicious: Hannibal
Prompted by the impending second season finale of “Hannibal” I decided to go back and re-read Hannibal by Thomas Harris. Much of this season had been culled from this particular book, so I thought it would be interesting to see how and where the story diverged from the original, since showrunner Bryan Singer does not have the rights (yet?) to the Clarice Starling role and she is a major character in the novel. I actually liked Hannibal better the second time around. Singer was brilliant to develop the TV series […]
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