General News from the World of Literature
Did you know that August 26 is Women’s Equality Day? I just found out about it. It isn’t a Hallmark gimmick as perhaps Grandparents’ Day may be. One doesn’t need to send cards for this day. It could be a day, however, that you would like to find out more about women’s equality in the United States–the history and continuing struggles–by getting a special book
I have to say that the term ‘summer reading’ elicits mixed feelings for me. As a parent, I found myself, by August, exhausted in efforts to coax my girls to finish their summer reading assignments for school. Passive resistance was their strategy for making me crazy. As a former educator, I see the value of summer reading assignments but not if the only follow-up is
On Tuesday, July 27, from 7:00 – 8:00, Marie Benedict, author of The Personal Librarian, will interview Kristin Harmel about her new book The Forest of Vanishing Stars. Remember the book about Jews who hid in forests from the Nazis the entire duration of WWII? Remember the blog entry on Kristin Harmel? If you were interested in this author or her new book, the program
You may be too young to remember when Jimmy Carter was President, or you may have just been too busy to have cared. I was pulling for him to do a good job because Georgia is my ‘adopted’ home state, and I was sick and tired of people making fun of him because he was from Plains, GA and had a Southern accent. Some very
taken from the Pulitzer Prizes website (pulitzer.org) PRIZE WINNERSThe 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winner in FictionFor distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000). The Night Watchman By Louise Erdrich NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WASHINGTON POST, AMAZON, NPR, CBS SUNDAY MORNING, KIRKUS, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BEST BOOK OF 2020 Based on the extraordinary life
Most of us saw and/or read Hidden Figures, a truly remarkable and endearing story of formerly overlooked female NASA scientists who played a vital role in the United States’ space program. Now, a book entitled My Remarkable Journey, Katherine Johnson’s memoir, reveals a more complete picture of Johnson, the main character in the book/movie. Johnson was a precocious child and always had a love of
Does the idea of a UPS drone delivering a package to your doorstep seem pretty amazing? If so, that is what traditional military leaders toward the end of WWII thought about the idea of a bomber dropping a bomb on a designated taget in Japan. The story of how precision bombing came about (or almost did NOT) is the story told by Malcolm Gladwell in
How many of you remember Lady Bird Johnson? My initial response upon becoming aware of her was to giggle because of her name. Her real name was Claudia, but it seems that her nanny told someone she was ‘as pretty as a lady bird’ and the name stuck. Her father called her Lady and LBJ called her Bird. Oh well…… Biographer Betty Boyd Caroli said
Can you imagine a world in which there is no To Kill a Mockingbird? How about In Cold Blood? April 28, 2021, marked the birthday of Harper Lee, who would have been 95 if she were still alive. Notwithstanding the supposed lack of awareness of America’s youth as to literary classics, ask any teenage student in the states of Georgia and Alabama (and probably Mississippi)
The Reading Habits Of Five Generations [Infographic] By Andre Calilhanna – August 10, 20203718270 Facebook Twitter Email I’ll admit, I’m not great at remembering which generation is which, and I do get a kick out of how people like to pit one against another. I guess that’s just the way we do everything these days. OK Boomers vs. Millennials. Gen Z vs. Gen X. And is it wrong that I didn’t
