"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
“When I began to write fiction that I knew would be published as science fiction, part of what I brought to it was the critical knowledge that science fiction was always about the period in which it was written. ‘1984’ is really about 1948. It can’t really be understood outside the historical context of 1948.” […]
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a difficult read. Difficult, at first, for mundane reasons. Names you don’t know how to pronounce (Sethe, Halle). Irritating, non-standard diction (whitepeople, blackpeople). A narrative structure that jumps without transition from character to character, time to time, location to location, leaving you to catch up as best you can. A general […]
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker The Color Purple is a story told in short letters. Letters, at first, from a barely-literate Celie to God, letters that are little more than raw observations of a brutal, degraded, hopeless life. Letters, later, from Celie’s sister Nettie, reminding Celie of their shared history, relating the progress of […]
“It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.” J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir, by Gore Vidal Gore Vidal always was a name-dropper. A talented, even brilliant […]
“The world breaks us all. Afterward, some are stronger at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway, Farewell To Arms The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson A Swedish journalist delivers three manuscripts to a publisher. He then dies. The manuscripts are published posthumously, one by one. No, this isn’t some high-concept movie pitch, it’s […]
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer Several months ago a marketing director at HarperCollins read one of my book reviews. She contacted me to ask if I would read and review an advance copy of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and of […]
When I started my banned books project in September, I didn’t realize that other people have done similar things. Searching the web for information on why John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany (review below) has been challenged so many times, I stumbled upon a very nice site called Banned Books. Bonnie, the proprietor […]
When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he reportedly said “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” It’s impossible to overstate the impact Uncle Tom’s Cabin had on mid-19th Century America, indeed the world. Lincoln was dead on. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a barn-burner, even today. What a […]