Essays – Addresses – Lectures
June 2021 and Mid-Year Reading Recap
Sigh. Well, I think posting a monthly (and even half-year) reading recap a full three weeks into the next month has to be some sort of record, even for me, but here we are. And I admit that at this point I’d even been contemplating holding off another week so as to combine this with […]
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Dear Ijeawele: A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun completely bowled me over when I read it a few years ago. Purple Hibiscus, too, took me in, though never as absolutely, when I read it the following year; for a first novel, it’s very impressive indeed. I seem to be doing somewhat less well with Adichie’s […]
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May 2021 Reading Recap
Still a lot of work on the back end of the blog, including on my “featured authors” pages (see the right column on the main Literature page and the introduction of my April 2021 recap post). So, contrary to plans, still no new posts in my alphabet blogging series in May. However, the time-consuming back end […]
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Nora Ephron: I Remember Nothing
As already mentioned elsewhere, if at all possible I try to combine my Diversity Bingo and / or Around the World reads with my (Dead) Author Birthday reads: In January, that combination yielded Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, in February, Toni Morrison’s Sula, in March, Gabriel García Márquez’s El coronel no tiene […]
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April 2021 Reading Recap
First things first: The persistent bug preventing followers / readers to comment on my posts straight off the post (i.e., other than by using the WP Reader) has finally been weeded out, thanks to my hosting service’s IT team … so you can, at last, comment even if you’re not using the WP Reader. (I […]
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Ursula K. Le Guin: No Time to Spare
Ursula K. Le Guin is an author I’ve only started to discover very recently. I knew that she fought hard against the qualification as a genre (sci-fi / fantasy / speculative fiction) author; and she has always had all my support to the extent that “genre” is used as synonymous with “less worthy” (or, as […]
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February and March 2021: Reading Recap
Well, go figure. The first quarter of 2021 is already behind us, never mind that I’m still having to remind myself on occasion to write “2021” instead of “2020” … (and we’re even a week into April already, but let that go). Anyway, since I never got around to doing a “February in review” post, […]
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Zadie Smith: Feel Free
I’ve had several books by Zadie Smith sitting on my TBR for a minor eternity; oddly, when the moment came to finally pick one of them, I didn’t select one of her novels but this collection of essays — which didn’t turn out to be a bad choice, however, as the essays included here did […]
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Zahra Hankir & Various Authors: Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World
One of the last books I read in the first quarter of 2021 was, at the same time, also one of my reading highlights to date — and next to the likes of Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison (as well as Agatha Christie’s multiple appearances in the area of mysteries), […]
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2020 in Facts and Figures
I already posted my main 2020 in Review and Looking Ahead to 2021 posts a while ago — only on my new blog (separate post to come) –, but I held back on my 2020 reading statistics until the year was well and truly over. And for all my good intentions when posting my mid-year […]
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Book Characters Turning Over a New Leaf
24 Festive Tasks: Door 4 – Japanese Culture Day, Task 2: Japanese Culture Day was first held in 1948, to commemorate the announcement of the country’s post-war constitution on November 3, 1946, which was to make a new start for Japan. Which book did you read this year where someone was searching for or starting […]
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Dorothy L. Sayers: The Lost Tools of Learning
24 Festive Tasks: Door 12 – World Philosophy Day, Book: Read a book about philosophy or a philosopher, or a how-to book about changing your life in a significant way or suggesting a particular lifestyle (Hygge, Marie Kobo, etc.). My pick for this holiday was Dorothy L. Sayers’s 1947 Oxford lecture The Lost Tools of […]
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Snakes and Ladders, 2020 Edition – TA’s Master Tracking Post: DONE!
Tracking courtesy of Charlie and Sunny, as always, of course! SPACES AND DICE ROLLS 1. Author is a woman — Patricia Wentworth: Pilgrim’s Rest (finished April 1, 2020) 2. Genre: mystery 3. Set in the twentieth century 4. Published in 2019 5. Published in 2018 6. Title has a color word in it 7. Author’s last […]
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Please pick my final Snakes & Ladders book! — UPDATED: Decision time.
Looks like we have a winner! So, Val McDermid’s fifth Karen Pirie book it is … I am really glad that every book I listed collected votes, though (and it was a close race between the two top contenders for quite a while) — needless to say, I intend to get to all of […]
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Please pick my final Snakes & Ladders book!
NOTE: Clicking on the image will take you to the actual poll. To avoid double counting, please use only the polling site to vote (i.e., don’t also tell me in your comments which books you’re voting for). Thank you! To see the results, click HERE. Original post: ThemisAthena.booklikes.com/post/2321902/please-pick-my-final-snakes-ladders-book
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Books Shipped Long Distance
24 Festive Tasks: Door 16 – St. Lucia’s Day, Task 4: The historic (3d century AD) St. Lucia was Italian; yet, like those of many other saints (including, e.g., St. Andrew and St. Nicholas), the most important celebrations of her holiday don’t occur in her place of origin but somewhere else in the world. List […]
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Plato: Timaeus & Critias
24 Festive Tasks: Door 9 – World Philosphy Day, Book: Read a book about philosophy or a philosopher, or a how-to book about changing your life in a significant way or suggesting a particular lifestyle (Hygge, Marie Kobo, etc. Plato’s cosmology and theory of the human body, and the story of Atlantis; courtesy of a […]
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An “Out of My Reach” Book Wishlist to St. Nick
24 Festive Tasks: Door 14 – St. Nicholas’ Day / Sinterklaas, Task 1: Write a book wish list to St. Nick / Santa Claus for books that you’ve been eyeing but can’t justify the expense of purchasing. (E.g., art books? Collector’s editions? Boxed sets?) Dear Saint Nick, it would be really nice if one […]
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Books With Antonyms in Their Titles
24 Festive Tasks: Door 5 – Bon Om Touk, Task 4: The South Korean flag features images of ying / yang (the blue and red circle in the center) and four sets of three black lines each representing heaven, sun, moon and earth and, in turn, the virtues humanity, justice, intelligence and courtesy. Compile a […]
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Happy Independence Day – and, my Freedom and Future Library
Related Blog Post: Book Recs Solicited: Freedom and Future Library Reading Project: Freedom and Future Library Could there possibly be a better day on which to finally follow up on my Freedom and Future Library post? Truth be told, I’d been hoping to compile this much faster, but RL threw a major spanner in […]
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