Controversies in the world of literature and articles on authors and their books.
The Messy Lives of Book People, Phaedra Patrick Imagine that you are the maid for a successful author and that she dies in the middle of writing her next best-seller AND that, in her dying words, she asks YOU to finish her book! The Woman in the Library, Sulari Gentill What would you do if you were in a quiet library and suddenly heard a
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: THE REPORTERS WHO TOOK ON A WORLD AT WAR by Deborah Cohen Cohen give readers an inside glimpse of the oft-times reckless reporters who covered the brewing crisis in Europe prior to and during WWII. Before we had 24/7 TV coverage, these American reporters were the sole source of news from the front. The Wall Street Journal says “(Ms.
Most of you are members of a book club; and you notice at the end of many books, the editor will include discussion questions for the book clubs. Frankly, I’ve never been impressed with most of the questions because they don’t seem to provoke critical thinking. Nevertheless, these questions often serve as a starting point that can lead to other questions. I happened upon an
Three books are that are relevent to the crisis in Ukraine are worth mentioning for those of you who like to explore situations in depth. (See blog entry on The Gates of Europe.) Two of the books are non-fiction and the third is considered historical fiction. Lessons from the Edge was written by Marie Yovanovitch. Remember her? She was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until
The 90’s were probably the happiest decade of my life. One of my daughters got married and another one graduated college. My husband and I celebrated our first AND our second grandchild. I worked harder during the nineties than I had ever worked before. I don’t remember ever being idle or having a difficult time falling asleep. The Olympics came to Atlanta, GA and I
Two new books especially for people who love books and book clubs and book reviews! Is that YOU? The first ‘find’ is a journal for any reader, really, but actually for those in a book club. How many times has someone in your book club asked, “Didn’t we read that?” or “Who led that one?” or even better, “I can’t remember if I read that
You have heard the phrase ‘truth is stranger than fiction’, right? Well these book titiles ARE fiction, at least some of them, and they are strange. Since I’m not sure about the sensitivity level of some of my subscribers, I won’t be posting all of them! How To Make Money In Your Spare Time Still Stripping After 25 Years (Quilt In A Day) The Beginner’s
There are several possible definitions for the term “pandemic novel.” First of all, such a novel could be a fictionalized story about a pandemic. I’m not sure who would read it. Secondly, the term could refer to a novel whose fame has spread like a pandemic. NO–stay clear of negative connotations when promoting a novel. So, then, a pandemic novel is a novel that is
The question of whether or not something is fact or fiction sounds as if it would be an easy one to answer. Just so you know, the objective ‘the student will distinquish fact from fiction’ is in the language arts curriculum from kindergarten through twelth grade. It isn’t always easy, however, to tell what is a fact and what is made up. That conflict is
The two books I am highlighting in this post were both published in October of 2021. While they cover two different time periods–Renaissance Europe and Revolutionary America–the authors have painstakingly researched and intriguingly presented information that some of us may not have known. The first book is by a prize-winning author who is also a professor at the University of South Carolina. Woody Holton teaches
