Image Credit: Liana Mikah Fairy tales contain the wisdom of older cultures. They are the means by which lessons were imparted to children, back before books existed, and children were not children for very long. As we get older, we sometimes find that we want stories which are darkly enchanting and hail back to the…
This Week, I Read…Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba’s The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite
Image Credit: Gabriel Ba Over the past year, I’ve gone rogue from Academia. Long story there. Back when I taught, a big question that a lot of my students had was: “Are graphic novels literature?” My response was always yes. Graphic novels—as I would assure my students—are literature. We need to start treating it like…
Books For People Looking for Nail-Biting Inducing Horror Novels
Image Credit: Steinar Engeland There is nothing that I like more than a good horror novel. I have read/watched/experienced so many horror books and movies that it takes quite a bit to scare me. The following books are the ones which have ruined me for lesser works. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill Joe Hill is…
This Week, I Read…Deborah Harkness’s Shadow of Night
There are a few characters in literature whom I wish death upon. In my real life, I don’t wish death on anyone—all manner of petty karmic things, but not death. I’m a psychopath, but only literary (pun intended). My list: Dolores Umbridge. Ramsey Bolton. Mr. Rochester. Rose the Hat. And now, Matthew de Clermont. He’s…
Books For People Who Need A Pick-Me-Up
Everybody needs a Pick-Me-Up, whether it’s a playlist of their favorite songs, a hot beverage, or a delicious thing involving lots of butter and sugar. Here are a few books which have a similar effect. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary-Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows Is there anything better than an…
Books For People Looking for More Magic In Their Lives
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe This is what I thought The All Souls Trilogy was going to be like. Connie, a student at Harvard, is sent to clean out her ancestral home, where she begins to learn of her ancestor’s death during the Salem witch trials. Past and present collide, and…
This Week, I Read…Kevin Henkes’s Olive’s Ocean
MAR2 This Week, I Read…Olive’s Ocean Trigger Warning: Suicide Olive’s Ocean is the Newberry Honor Award-Winning book by children’s writer, Kevin Henkes. This is his first YA book, published in 2003. I bought and read this book when I was in the ninth grade. Despite several mass clean-outs over the years, this book has remained…
This Week, I Read…Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches
A Discovery of Witches is the wildly popular novel by Deborah Harkness. It’s got everything: witches, vampires, daemons, and scholarly puzzles that turn out to involve very complicated magical answers. Diana Bishop is a witch who wants to be a human. After the brutal deaths of her parents, she turns her back on her powers,…
This Week, I Read…Charles deLint’s The Wild Wood
This week, I read The Wild Wood, by fantasy author Charles deLint. I’ve recently been on a deLint kick, if you will. I have finally unpacked my books after being on the move for a year and a half, and found The Riddle of the Wren, which I read when I was in middle school,…
This Week, I Read…The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller
This book was was an impulse buy, and I totally thought that it would just be something that I’d read and move on from. You know—the kind of book that your Fifth Grade ELA teacher would call “Brain Candy.” But The Ghost and the Bogus Bookseller really surprised me. It’s about a crime-fighting duo—a quirky,…
This Week, I Read... 