Native American
Q1 / 2022 Reading Recap
Well, as it turned out 2022 began as 2021 had ended — all work and no play, albeit with the addition of a hospital detour to boot. (Nothing serious, just way more painful and, all told, protracted, than it had any right to be.) So I’m back to posting one summary post for the first […]
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Marcia Muller: Ask the Cards a Question
Blurb: There’s trouble in Sharon McCone’s quiet San Francisco apartment building. Madame Anya, with her cards, her tamed crow, and her candles, had predicted evil for Molly Antonio. Linnea Carraway, drinking heavily and careening in the wake of a divorce, had argued with her. Now the sweet, elderly lady lies dead in her apartment. Linnea, […]
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Marcia Muller: Edwin of the Iron Shoes
Blurb: It’s Sharon McCone’s first case as staff investigator for All Souls Legal Cooperative. She knows nothing about antiques, yet she has an affection for Salem Street with its charming mix of antique and curio shops. Now elderly dealer Joan Albritton has been found dead, stabbed with an antique dagger. Her neighbors are shocked. Recurring […]
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Halloween Bingo 2021: Card, Spells, Markers and Book Pool
Phew! I’ve had blog display issues for the better part of August due to a stupid WP plugin acting up (and of course, it was a plugin allegedly intended to “facilitate” the import of content into my chosen theme — haha, right), but luckily they were resolved just in time for Halloween Bingo! (Gosh … […]
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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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Marcie R. Rendon: Murder on the Red River
When I took a look at Native American authors whose work I might want to explore, next to Joy Harjo (whose memoir Crazy Brave I read last month), Marcie R. Rendon quickly stood out as another obvious candidate. A member of the (Ojibwe / Minnesota Chippewa) White Earth Band, she is a resident of Minneapolis; […]
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Marcie R. Rendon: Girl Gone Missing
Given how much I liked Rendon’s debut novel, reading her second book, too, was pretty much a given for me. Again she writes from the heart; in this instance, about the trafficking of young girls and women for sex purposes, the victims of which trade formed a large part of her day job before becoming […]
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Katherena Vermette: The Break
Big sigh. Oh, this book had so much going for it. The Break is set in a uniquely Canadian — well, OK, Canadian and Canada / U.S. border region — community; that of the Métis, descendants of the union of European (mostly French) settlers and their Native American partners; one of three groups of Indigenous […]
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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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Joy Harjo: Crazy Brave
Poet Joy Harjo is one of today’s foremost Native American voices; her recently-published memoir was thus a proximate choice for the corresponding entry in my quest to broaden my literary horizons. Harjo’s life story is that of many Native Americans of her generation: as far removed from the American Dream as you can be; socially […]
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An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “Q”
This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE. Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete. As always, the only thing linking the two items mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the […]
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LitHub: Here are the most challenged books from the last decade.
Source: https://lithub.com/here-are-the-most-challenged-books-from-the-last-decade/ By Corinne Segal September 28, 2020, 12:09pm The results are in, and the list of most challenged books from the last decade is a mix of American classics, LGBTQ-themed books, and stories about female agency and empowerment. In other words, all the books that we should be reading all the time. Kicking off […]
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Aimee and David Thurlo: Second Sunrise
Native American police procedural meets vampires, witches and werewolves. To give the authors their due, I guess with skinwalkers being a key part of Navajo mythology, it’s a proximate thought to capitalize on the past decade(s)’ vampire craze and go full tilt supernatural / paranormal, and the sequence of events that turns our protagonist into […]
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Halloween Bingo 2020: The Second Week (+1 Day)
Posting this on Monday instead of Sunday again … oh well. I guess after a near-phenomenal first bingo week it was only to be expected that the second week would not be quite as fabulous. Mind you, I’m not complaining — my card is coming together nicely, and none of the books I read this […]
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Halloween Bingo 2020: TA’s Game Preparation Post
Note When updating this post during the game, the books actually selected will be highlighted in bold print and with a check mark (√) next to them. Updates Spell invoked: Bingo Flip with Lora — STONE COLD HORROR replaced by READ BY FLASHLIGHT OR CANDLELIGHT Also, as our game hosts have made it clear that […]
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Favorite Trolls and Gnomes
24 Festive Tasks: Door 16 – St. Lucia’s Day, Task 3: Trolls, gnomes, dwarves and similar beings (some evil, some less so, almost all of them mischievous) are a staple of Scandinavian mythology and folklore, as well as other folklores and mythologies around the world and, of course, fantasy and speculative fiction. Who is your […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/09 (Day 9): Book Suggestions for the New Squares? Part 2
DARK ACADEMIA Somehow, British universities and public schools seem to provide a particularly fertile ground for this sort of story: * Dorothy L. Sayers: Gaudy Night (Oxford University) * Agatha Christie: Cat Among the Pigeons (private girls’ school) * Nicholas Blake: A Question of Proof (public school) * Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop (Oxford University) […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/07 (Day 7): Favorite Halloween Bingo Authors?
Going by the list of my favorite reads from years past, my favorite Halloween authors so far have been (in alphabetical order and not entirely surprisingly): Raymond Chandler Agatha Christie Arthur Conan Doyle James D. Doss Daphne Du Maurier E.T.A. Hoffmann Shirley Jackson Ngaio Marsh Peter May Sharyn McCrumb Edgar Allan Poe Terry Pratchett […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019 PreParty — Question for 08/04 (Day 4): Favorites from Halloween Bingos Past?
Oh man. So many! Biggest new discoveries: * Fredric Brown: The Fabulous Clipjoint — huge thank you to Tigus, who gifted his Ed & Am Hunter omnibus to me. Where had Brown been all my life until then? * James D. Doss: Charlie Moon series (via books 6 & 7, Grandmother Spider and White Shell […]
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BL-opoly: Independence Day Extra Rolls
Hooo boy. So, it turns out my Independence Day extra rolls are sending me right around the board. Doubles, novelty cards … Anyway, here we go: I just finished my current read, which was for square 2 (“Who?”). My first roll, starting from there, sends me to square 9: The Stay-Cation — read a book […]
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