In The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig invites readers to visit a small farming community in Montana, about a hundred years back. There, we observe frontier ways of life, as these are inexorably yielding to encroaching modernity. This book portrays some of the important cultural origins of our times, in the form of a novel with …
I am reading A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit. The book, vaguely based on the premise that people today are rarely “lost,” explores the gray area between danger and stability. Consisting of nine short essays, it jumps across disciplines, pulling references from history, art, literature, Solnit’s dreams, and her friend’s anecdotes. I …
George Babbitt, a middle aged realtor, has all the luxuries of a successful middle-class businessman, but finds himself dissatisfied with life. Throughout the novel, Babbitt becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the social conventions that dictated his choices until then, but realizes it is too late for him to rebel, accepting the quiet dissatisfaction of his ordinary …
I’ve always had a soft spot for comics – I won’t try to pass off my appreciation of them as necessitating the medium’s place among high art, but aesthetically deserving or not, I will probably keep reading them. Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff is one of the rare comics that can draw me in years …
I’m currently reading book #1 of #8 in a series of books by Jaden Skye that are part of her Caribbean Murder Series. Cindy and Clint are newlyweds spending their honeymoon on the picturesque island of Barbados. Less than a week into their trip Clint, an avid surfer, is found dead along the beach under …
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This past summer I read and really enjoyed a book titled, Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It is a memoir about a young woman who decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail through California, Oregon, and Washington State. This book is all about Strayed’s reflection on the life she had before her journey and contains flashbacks …
I’ve always enjoyed reading novels written in a powerful voice and in an unfamiliar version of English. For example, many characters in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies speak a hybrid of South Asian languages and English; some characters also use the lingo of sailors and opium traders. The world Ghosh writes about becomes wonderfully fresh …
When I was nine years old, a family friend who was an artist received a commission to illustrate a book for celebrated children’s author Jacqueline Woodson. My parents had met the artist when he had his first show in Philadelphia and remained friends with him over time. After I was born, he started illustrating children’s …
I read some of Coover’s short stories in college, but hadn’t read any of his novels. I’ve always wanted to read this one. When I learned he had written a 1000-page sequel, due out in early 2014, I decided now was the time. The book, published in 1966, tells the story of a devastating coal …
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This semester I am taking an English class called “Fairy Tales and Retellings”. As hinted in the title of the course, the class is focused on examining fairy tales and their adaptations throughout time. Although we read many different fairy tales from a wide range of sources, one book we rely on for how the …