The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Blog (and Life) Update

Lately, I have not been feeling A-OK. I have not even been feeling just "OK," nevermind the "A" part. "Fine" as a back-up term is usually fittingly nondescript and noncommital but even it has not been able to save me this week. Also, I ran out of coffee on Monday. Not saying I was suffering… Continue reading The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Blog (and Life) Update

Red (Gail’s Version): 10 Books With “Red” in Their Titles

Happy Valentine's Day! Here I am again with a rather spurious attempt to be topical in my posts: ten books I have read with "red" in the title. Colour is an admittedly tenuous connection to make between these particular books and the feast of St. Valentine's, but it is a connection nonetheless. And I'm not… Continue reading Red (Gail’s Version): 10 Books With “Red” in Their Titles

8 YA Trilogies That Deserve More Hype

Good things come in threes--young adult book trilogies are evidence of the fact. Bad things, alas, also come in threes--as demonstrated by the love triangles plaguing this particular age bracket's fiction like a particularly unpleasant swarm of wormy insects. Despite this and other common tropes, young adult fiction has been a large part of my… Continue reading 8 YA Trilogies That Deserve More Hype

Classics Club Book List

So, after years of seeing the lists, the spins, the challenges, and the memes, I am finally joining the Classics Club! This is pretty big for me as I've had some bad experiences with booklists/challenges and vowed never to get myself into one again, but never say never, I guess. I actually feel good about… Continue reading Classics Club Book List

‘A feminist: (masculinely)…’

I did, once upon a time, read Ulysses by James Joyce. And I did, once upon a Mediterranean cruise, enjoy parts of it along with some quotes I saved. Seeings it is Bloomsday, June 16, the singular day on which all 265,000 words and 18 episodes of the novel canonically take place, I can hardly… Continue reading ‘A feminist: (masculinely)…’

Memento: Relics and Memorabilia in A Canticle for Leibowitz*

The Albertian monks’ preservation of Memorabilia from before the Fallout (worldwide nuclear destruction) is a constant theme in Walter M. Miller Jr.’s post-apocalyptic science fiction novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. The monks attempt to maintain a history exclusively with Memorabilia, “meaning… only… books and papers, not… interesting hardware,” because their experiences with an intercontinental launching… Continue reading Memento: Relics and Memorabilia in A Canticle for Leibowitz*

5 Books With “Green” in Their Titles

It’s a shameless shtick, I know, to make a post about green on St. Patrick’s Day. However, I’ve thought about making posts about books with colours in their titles for a long time, so I might as well take advantage of the coincident events to start with books I’ve read with the colour “green” in… Continue reading 5 Books With “Green” in Their Titles

Titles on Trend: Wives & Daughters, Pt. 2

Finally, the long-awaited conclusion to this two-part series of Titles on Trend: the “daughters” portion of “Wives & Daughters.” If you didn't catch the first part, the "wives," check it out here. I easily compiled a list of books following the same pattern of “The [insert occupation of choice here]’s Daughter” without even fudging the… Continue reading Titles on Trend: Wives & Daughters, Pt. 2