General News from the World of Literature
The Sandcastle Book Club met via Zoom on January 11, at 1:00. Madeleine Kaye facilitated a lively discussion of Big Lies in a Small Town, by Diane Chamberlain. Over 20 members tuned in. After listening to a podcast in which the author was interviewed, Kaye was able to offer unique insight into features of the book. One book club member had read all of Chamberlain’s
No, this isn’t a plug for a new elixir or an on-line mental exercise. This blog entry introduces you to Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s newest book Keep Sharp. If you think Gupta’s name or face looks familiar, it’s because you may have seen him on CNN. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is CNN’s Emmy Award–winning chief medical correspondent and the host of the acclaimed podcast Coronavirus: Fact vs Fiction.
January 7 was author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston’s birthday. She died in 1960 in a welfare home in Florida and was buried in an unmarked grave nearby. She wrote during the Harlem Renaissance, but her work was not well received by Black critics at the time. Her best known novel Their Eyes Were Watching God was first published in 1937 but had gone out
Read all about it!! Read it now before you watch the movie, which opens Christmas Day in theaters and on Netflix. News of the World is a novel by Paulette Jiles. The story takes place in Texas right after the Civil War. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels around the west reading news to the folks there, many of whom cannot read themselves, nor do they
By Shayna Murphy•Updated: December 9, 2020•Book Bub Libraries are truly the gift that keeps on giving! While us book lovers may not have been able to enjoy libraries quite as much as we may have wanted to this year, that doesn’t mean we can’t admire their holiday decorations from afar. If you’re the kind of bookworm who absolutely loves going to the library every chance you get —
Virgin River is a fictional town in northern California, existing amidst the redwood forest and inhabited by a host of interesting characters. Robyn Carr has written 21 books set in Virgin River. The latest in the series made its debut October 13, 2020 and is entitled Return to Virgin River. Return is the first ‘Virgin River’ book Carr has written since 2012. So why all
December’s Meeting, December 14, 2020 Nineteen book club members tuned in for a Zoom meeting led by Diane Flaherty. Diane reviewed The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Members joined in a discussion naming their favorite characters and revealing challenges they faced trying to figure out the three main plot threads. Some members absolutely loved the book while others found it very sad. Everyone agreed
The Sandcastle Book Club met via Zoom on November 9. Martha Zink reviewed Erik Larson’s The Splendid and The Vile. Even though over 20 book club members tuned in, everyone had a chance to comment or ask questions. Martha stressed many of the book’s most interesting aspects and clarified questions some members asked. All agreed it was a a very worthwhile hour and thanked Martha
If you think that Dolly Parton has been in the news a lot lately, you are right. Her most recent newsworthy venture was to donate 1 million dollars to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in honor of her longtime friend, Naji Abumrad, MD, and professor of surgery at the medical center. In April, Abumrad mentioned to Parton that funds were needed to advance the study of
Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein (Photo by Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty Images)CompSave Many of us know that a nineteen year old woman named Mary Shelley wrote what is considered to be the first science fiction novel. What we may not know is the story behind this Nineteenth Century author and her now famous book Frankenstein.. While not intending to ‘create a monster,’ Shelley may as
