Well, friends, I hope you are all hanging in there. These past few weeks have been hard even by 2020 standards, as the country’s government showed yet again — as if there remained any doubt — that it does not care about Black lives, and will uphold white supremacy at any cost. The protests that resulted have been met all too frequently with police violence. If anyone reading this has felt unsure about the aims and demands of the Black Lives Matter movement, I hope those doubts have been laid to rest in the past fortnight. Our country must confront…
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Remember a long time ago when you first read Donna Tartt’s debut novel The Secret History? Remember how you were like, blown away by it? And then some time went by and maybe you sort of forgot or didn’t trust the memory of how wildly in love with it you were? Especially because the books you read the year you studied abroad all feel like a weird fever dream because you were terribly depressed that year (like the time you read The Time Traveler’s Wife and were so consumed by grief that you literally couldn’t get out of bed for…
1 CommentLook, y’all know me, and you know that when The Millions releases its book preview, I am ruined for all else for a while. This year, Lithub has also begun releasing a book preview too, which, I mean, there can never be too many large-size book previews, right? The first half of the year book preview is up at The Millions! And here’s the Lithub one, which I haven’t perused yet so I can’t speak to how solid or unsolid it is or isn’t. This is a very good review of Marriage Story. Women can write spy thrillers too! Goddammit.…
Leave a CommentWell, 2019 is over, and I say good riddance to bad rubbish, overall. So many trash things happened this year that when I discovered Notre Dame burned down this year, I had to fact-check it thrice. (It did though.) (Not over it.) On the positive side, I read a lot of terrific books, and there are many more awesome books in the offing for 2020 — which will be a separate post, of course! Here’s a list of my favorite reads of the year, listed in the order in which I read them. There are thirteen of them, which I…
Leave a CommentWhat’s got two thumbs and is doing a blog event? I am so on top of this blog event that I’m posting about it before the month of November even begins. It’s Nonfiction November, and you can find the full announcement and schedule here! We’re starting with Your Year in Nonfiction, and I have had a year in nonfiction! Some things have changed! Things have changed about my nonfiction reading habits! If you want to participate in Nonfiction November (which you surely do), you can pop over to check out other people’s posts and link up your own at Julz…
Leave a CommentAfter a slight drought in the month of March, I believe that the readathon kick-started my reading, and I am now ticking along very nicely once more. I actually have news to report! (Stop by Book Date to see what other folks are reading.) What I Read Last Week: A bunch of stuff! I finished up Han Kang’s The White Book, which was strange and beautiful as translated by Deborah Smith. A favorite line: A person who had met the same fate as that city. Who had at once time died or been destroyed. Who had painstakingly rebuilt themselves on…
Leave a CommentWell, 2018 is finally over, my friends. I saw a Twitter poll that was like “how equipped are you to handle 2019 as compared to 2018” and I legitimately did not know how to answer it. At this exact moment, coming off a vacation in which I gave and received many presents, possessed of a majestic goals board and a brand new planner, I am feeling very equipped to deal with 2019. However, let it not be forgotten that I felt this same way in January 2018, whereupon I was promptly hit by a car and broke my neck. I…
Leave a CommentClear your schedules, I am going to talk about a book so entirely in my wheelhouse that it and my wheelhouse are basically coterminous. (That’s an exaggeration but not really.) I refer to KJ Charles’s latest book, The Henchmen of Zenda. Before I get into The Henchmen of Zenda, I need to confess that I have this weird soft spot for old-time British adventure novels. There’s no defense I can or should make about this. These are horribly sexist and racist books that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. I like the swashbuckling. So when I heard that one of my…
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