Essays on books, reading, and writing.
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A Woman Walks the City
I am grateful for those years of company during lockdown and those reunions after. Being alone must have been terrifying during that time and I wasn’t alone. Now, though, the world is breaking the structure of the past few years and settling into a new one. Being alone might not be just because of illness…
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The Power of the Comfort Read
This summer was a major time to test my instincts because it was filled with stress and worry. Books, by authors I knew would help, brought me a great deal of comfort. Now that the situation has passed though, it’s made me curious about my choices. My question is, what makes a book comfortable?
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Poems not Prose
I don’t read much poetry now that I’m out of the formal educational system. Not because I don’t enjoy it, but because I’ve never been a very confident poetry reader so having a little guidance from a group or a class made all the difference. For the past two weeks though I’ve been unable to…
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A Stack of Half-Read Books
We all hear about and talk about (and read about) what it means to finish a book. I’m sure I will finish all of these books and have plenty to say when they are done. But this month showed me just how much power starting a book can have as well.
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True Ghost Stories
This year though I’ve fallen into a rabbit hole of true ghost stories – that is true stories of people and ghosts.
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When the World Loses a Voice…
…it always feels personal to lose a writer you love. You lose the possibility of something new; you lose the possibility of seeing them in person, of handing them your book so they can sign it for you. Their words become a finite resource. Something you can turn to and examine time and again, but…
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The Likable Un-Likeables
Unlikable characters offer so many possibilities for both a writer and a reader I can’t wait to meet the next one on my bookshelf…
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From Page to Screen
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a new Jane Austen adaptation will divide critics and fans alike.
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What is your favorite book?
I was faced with a tricky question recently: What is your favorite book? Now, of course, there are a few scenarios where this question arises. It could be someone who doesn’t know what to do with you when you say your hobby is reading so they ask to be polite. It might be the reader…
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The Unfinished
In No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy, Mark Hodkinson discusses the common reader conundrum: when do you abandon a book? Hodkinson is confident in his technique, if the book doesn’t hook him quickly, he lets it go. Plenty of other writers and reviewers have addressed the issue. Some say deciding not to finish a book…
lost in the dust jackets 