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Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell Book Review: And This Gives Life to Thee
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. William Shakespeare, Sonnet…
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On Writing Poems and Darning Socks: Robert Southey’s Advice to Charlotte Brontë
‘…she rather needs keeping down than bringing forward; and then I think, monsieur—it appears to me that ambition, LITERARY ambition especially, is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman: would not Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the quiet discharge of social duties…
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Little Fires Everywhere Book Review: Where’s the Fire?
“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.” ― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere Shaker Heights, Ohio, one of America’s first planned communities, is governed by a seemingly utopian…
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Buttons, Books, and a Baby: South of the Buttonwood Tree by Heather Webber
Publication Date: July 21, 2020Publisher: Macmillan Publishing Group ‘It was the kind of day in Buttonwood, Alabama, where trouble slipped into town with the breeze, jarring awake sleepy springtime leaves on the massive oaks and sky-high hickories. It scraped parched dirt, sending dust skittering along the trail like it was running for cover. It whistled…
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On Love, Revolution, and Storytelling: Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.” Isabel Allende, Eva Luna In one of her…
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Sara Badawieh’s Beige and Blue: A Book Review
‘Today a monster has been born.’ This is not how typical romance books begin, and Sara Badawieh’s Beige and Blue is anything but a typical romance book. It is an intense, fast-paced, romantic thriller that follows Samar, the twenty-something protagonist, as she tries to come to terms with her life choices while being pulled deep…
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The Everywoman: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
“I wanted to write about the everyday and common but nonetheless undeserved experience of women around me,” said Cho Nam-Joo in an interview for the New York Times, and this is exactly what one can expect from her ground-shaking novel: straightforward minimalist narrative that hits very close to home and transmits a powerful universal message.…
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Greek Mythology in the Spotlight: Circe by Madeline Miller, A Book Review
‘Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.’ In her novel Circe, nominated this year for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Miller takes this premise and goes on to tackle the oft-discussed issue of perception and marginalization by redeeming the enchantress…
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Indie Review: In the Sun by Mixie Plum
In her beautifully written novella, strewn with numerous references to literature, music, and pop culture that allow readers to immerse themselves into the protagonist’s universe, the author Mixie Plum takes her readers on an emotional roller coaster, from laugh-out-loud highs to heart-rending lows. When Phoebe, Plum’s witty protagonist, receives dreadful news, she tries coping with…
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What is a Human Woman? – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
As Elizabethan literary theorist Sir Philip Sidney claims in his 16th century work titled The Defence of Poesie, the purpose of poetry, later extended to encompass all literary genres, is to simultaneously teach and delight the reader. Gail Honeyman’s debut novel Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine fits neatly into this category, since it teaches us…
Myths & Stories 