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When thinking about genres of literature, one usually thinks things such as: “I don’t really like science fiction” or “All I really ever read is non-fiction” or “I love that mystery writer.” Book publishers have developed elaborate algorithms using artificial intelligence to chart who buys what type of book, how many pages the book should have and what subjects are most likable. Some books, however,
Remember the vivid book covers? The hint of romance? The thrill of discovery? The GIRL protagonist? All of these features and more riveted girl readers to almost literally ‘absorb’ all of the Nancy Drew Books. In a recent blog post, I mentioned that Carolyn Keene, ‘author’ of the Nancy Drew series, did not really exist. The thing is, no one cares! Molly Young, book critic
If you are planning to do a bit of reading this summer and want to tackle some books that aren’t just ‘beach reads,’ I have a few to suggest…….. While I haven’t read this book yet, I plan to. Some have suggested that it is another glorious ode to trees, a novel that compares to Richard Power’s Overstory. The book has also been praised by
The following three books could easily fly under your radar UNLESS you pay close attention to this post! Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation, by Maud Newton How many of you have sent your DNA to ancestry.com? For those of us who are very curious and do not have a genealogist in the family, we may have done so. I know that I did.
Some of you may ask, “Who is Frank Bruni”? Frank Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer for the New York Times. He is also known for his best selling book Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be. This book was written for high school students and their parents in an attempt to deconstruct the college admissions process. It’s too bad some well-known celebrities didn’t
Grandparents are certainly important family members. No scientific study is needed to verify that fact. When your grandparents are the President and the First Lady, however, it’s worth writing about. Agreed? That is exactly what Jenna Bush Hager has done with her new book Everything Beautiful in Its Time. The book is a collection of journal entries Hager began writing in 2018 when her grandmother
Do you remember when Linda Malcolm reviewed a book entitled The Windsor Knot? Linda enjoyed the light and clever mystery about Queen Elizabeth solving crimes while carrying out her officail duties. Intriguing, isn’t it? Now the book is out in paperback, for those of you who still read actual books, AND the author SJ Bennett has a sequel entitled All the Queen’s Men. There are
Today at the Sandcastle Book Club meeting, Martha Zink led the discussion of The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn. The novel was based on real women who worked as code-breakers at Betchley Park during and after World War II. Martha printed photos of the ‘real’ people who were featured in the book. Several club members shared their experiences touring Bletchley Park. Quinn has a new
While we are watching the Ukranian people fight Russian soldiers and dodge Russian missles, a few of us may be confused about the country itself. World leaders have bantered around different narratives about the nation for the past decade. To get a broader scope on the current conflict and to understand the roots of the issue, one needs to go back in history to a
During the 2021 Charleston Literary Festival, Kameelah Martin, Dean of the Graduate School at College of Charleston, interviewed Tiya Miles, whose book All That She Carried : The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family’s Keepsake won the National Book Award for non-fiction in 2021. Yes, this book is non-fiction! Miles is a Professor of History at Harvard University, and she researched her own family
