Get Lost in Literature

Retellings are novels that are based on old classics or fairytales, rewritten from a fresh perspective and/or set in a new or modern world.  I've read a lot of retellings over the years but I admit, that most of them were written by Gregory Maguire, including one of my favorite books and his most popular one, Wicked . For those of you who don't know, Wicked is the life story of the Wicked Witch of the West starting from her conception to her last moments. I found it to be surprisingly detailed and richly imagined as if Gregory Maguire wanted to live in Oz himself. Another retelling I want to draw attention to is What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. The story retells one of my favorite short stories, Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. Kingfisher's imagery completely and accurately sets the tone for this gothic novella that follows a retired soldier unraveling the mystery of her friends' declining health. If fairytales are your thing, A Curse So Dar...

What does it take to become a writer? I wanted to be a novelist. That was the dream. I wanted to take the things that I could imagine, write them down, sell them to people who would appreciate them. I wanted to be a published author. I went to school for it and everything. I really do feel that my writing improved with my education, I’m not saying it didn’t. But the dream never came true… And now I work in manufacturing and write novels at night that will probably never see the light of day. Hindsight being everything, I should have gone to school for accounting. But there are a lot of successful authors out there who never went to college. It didn’t hurt them. The lack of education doesn’t negate raw talent. They had the vision, the skill, and the dedication it took to write down their ideas and get them to the finish line. Maybe it’s simply those three traits that qualify a writer. I can’t look at any one novelist and compare them to the next. I can’t find a common life thread that u...

Today, I'm going slightly off topic by talking about fictional podcasts. If audiobooks are the same as reading a paperback, then a good fictional podcast is like an audiobook with voice actors and sound effects. Now I struggle to concentrate on audiobooks. The voice that drones on and on... I compare it to white noise and the quality of the story, assuming it's good, is completely lost on me. I had the same problem with my first podcasts. My attention span was just too short to follow true-crime or science or politics. But then I got hooked on Aaron Mahnke's Lore . Lore is not considered a fictional podcast, detailing stories of the supernatural that may have occurred if you believe in that sort of thing. But Lore was a gateway to my love of fictional podcasts because Aaron Mahnke created one called The Bridgewater Triangle . Hearing a story about the Bridgewater Triangle (a location in Massachusetts that is said to be a nexus for the paranormal) appealed to me greatly be...

O is for Opinionated, which is a thing that I am. Most of us are opinionated even if you are someone who insists you are not. You have a brain therefore you are. It's the driving reason so many of us have blogs in the first place: Have Opinion, Must Share. Some people share their opinions on crochet, fashion, photography... I share my opinion on books. I love to read. If you've been following right along you probably have guessed that by my previous posts, but if this is your first visit now you know. My blog was inspired by my need to read, a desire to connect with other readers, and yes, I wanted to share my opinion on what it is I'm reading. I also wanted to put all those literature courses I took in college to use, which is to say, I spent an awful lot of time learning how to analyze books. So now I give my opinion on books I've read. I try to keep my reviews fair. I try to make sure a book I'm reviewing negatively doesn't come off as bullying. If I get trap...

Today I want to talk about book bans and banned/challenged books. Or as I like to call it, nonsense. I'm going to start by saying I don't believe in book bans. I mean, I know they aren't mythical, they exist. But I don't believe you have the right to tell me what I can and cannot read just because you don't find it appropriate for you. And when books get stripped from school libraries, I don't believe you should have the right to tell someone else's child what they can and cannot read, that's really between that child and their parents. Technically speaking, book banning is still illegal. There are certainly people who want specific books banned from public consumption, and there are people who have advocated successfully for certain books to be pulled from library shelves, but you can't actually prevent people from reading these books. In the United States, there's a little thing called the 1st Amendment  and I tried to detail what it means on t...

  Myth - a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. This is the definition of ' myth ' provided by Copilot when I Google-searched the definition of a myth. Typically, to my knowledge most of the best known myths are stories of gods and goddesses such as in Greek and Roman mythology (it even comes from the Greek word ' mȳthos '), and more controversially we could include the Bible in this category of story. Circe by Madeline Miller would be one example of a book that deals with mythology, detailing the life of the daughter of Helios. Seemingly powerless and ordinary, she eventually becomes the goddess of witchcraft and banished to an island where she hones her craft and takes the company of men. Another would be The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly , where the worried mother of a comatose daughter is whisked away to Elsewhere, a ...

Today's blog post is about listening, more specifically listening to audiobooks. Audiobooks are simply books that have been converted into an auditory narration. They're often preferred by people who don't have time to sit still and would rather utilize those headphones to listen to a good book, rather than use their eyes. I know there are people who exclusively listen to audiobooks, but I'm not a big audiobook listener. My attention span is a little too short to concentrate on the narration, my ears eventually reducing the voice to white noise. I've only successfully completed 4 audiobooks in my life:  World War Z 's unabridged audiobook, which was done entirely with voice actors and was a format I loved best. I've listened to Astrophysics for People in a Hurry , Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster , and I've listened to my favorite novel Call of the Wild .  Audiobooks are a bit controversial among diehar...

As in the whole kit-and-kaboodle.  That's right. Today we're going to talk about those collections. My collection, as you may have guessed it, is made up of books. It's organized by genre (mostly). I can always put my hands on a fantasy or a mystery or a horse book (horses, I've determined, are their own genre) because I always know exactly where it is. My only deviation from genre, is author collections. If I have multiple books by the same author, I group them together instead. I haven't counted my books. I don't know how many I have. Not as much as some, but definitely more than others. I don't share my books often. They usually come home dog-eared or with teeth marks from an inquiring kitten or smelling of cigarette smoke and occasionally they don't come home at all. I'm a collector you see, unless I truly didn't like a book and think someone else will enjoy it more, I don't just hand them out. I might want to read them again and I certai...

"What are you doing?" "Just reading." I suppose this post is sort of a tie-in with B and F and my upcoming K entry. Books are wonderful, and we all have Favorites, and K would be telling so let's hold off on that one. I'm just reading... Done on the weekends with my morning coffee while I sit in my rocking chair, or done outside in the shade in an adirondak, or done sprawled out on a towel at the beach. And let's not forget those blog posts when I'm sitting in front of a computer. I'm just reading. This whole blog is basically about my reading habits, and while I read some genres more than others, I read a little from almost every one. I'm a thrill seeker; excluding my aversion to carnival rides, skydiving, reckless driving, or anything else that could get me injured or killed... Okay, maybe 'thrill seeker' is the wrong term but I'm constantly looking for the next book to thrill me, enchant me, fill me with passion, sweep me off m...

  “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ― Oscar Wilde Today's topic is inclusivity in literature. With the Trump Administration cancelling the DEI policies that sought to make it easier for minorities in the USA to be included, it's more important than ever to raise awareness for the fact that everyone needs a story that they can relate to and not just stories aimed at your stereotypical Mr. and Mrs. Mary Sue who are probably white. There's been a lot of talk about lack of representation of minority groups in media (in the US; I can't speak as to other countries' societal problems) over the recent years, including tv, movies, and yes, even books. People aren't always white, heterosexual, or without handicap. So if you supported Trump's so-called 'anti-woke' policies, which I believe is just an excuse to legally exclude people based on bigotry, feel free to leave at any time rather than be offended by my book recs. I'm going to start with...

“He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.” ― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale The above painting was discovered in the Lascaux cave in France. It portrays two bulls, a handful of tiny red deer at the bottom, and in the center, a horse. This painting is estimated to be about 17,000 years old. Which confirms what I already suspected: We've been obsessed with horses for a very long time. (I certainly have been.) And maybe they haven't been appearing in books for as long as we've been painting them, but they've been appearing in books for quite a while. They're portrayal in literature is unsurprisingly memorable. Some books were written to convey major themes, like Black Beauty by Anna Sewell meant to remind us of animal welfare, or War Horse by Michael Morpurgo which has long been hailed as anti-war propaganda important enough to have been made into b...

 “We are the universe watching itself, watching and learning.” ― Christopher Paolini, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Today's bookish topic is galactic... More specifically, our desire to be amongst the stars.  It's a desire on everybody's mind, more often than we care to admit. It was why Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a feat that seemed too fantastic, so people called it a hoax. It's why when we imagine the apocalypse, be it zombies or global warming, we imagine a space station or alien planet capable of supporting life after earth. It's why private space companies emerged after NASA, with billionaire entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson building their own spacecrafts, one of which looked comically like a male body part. And it's absolutely why the concepts of space-tourism and privatized space flight are so popular, even if the 'common people' probably won't be able to afford it. And although this is a book blog, I would be remiss if I...

  “It’s a gift if it makes us better. It’s a curse if we let it destroy us.” - N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season Let's talk about favorites today. via GIPHY I'm sorry if the giant Mamoa-making-heart-sign-gif is too much, I got excited thinking about my favorites. ( To be fair, I did try to shrink it, but resizing wouldn't stick. ) If you asked fifty people off the street what their favorite book is, they'll more likely than not, give you different answers. That doesn't make a single one of them wrong, not even if your answer to the same question is different from theirs. And the question, what makes a favorite a favorite, is equally subjective both to the individual being asked and the circumstances around the book. The first thing that stands out to me in any book, are the characters. They're the ones telling the story, regardless of setting or plot, so they better be good. The second thing that stands out to me is the setting... If I'm going to go on a proper...

"Wash the bones, bring the body, leave the heart behind." Tea Obreht, The Tiger's Wife  E is for Encyclopedia. An Encyclopedia is a collection of knowledge - history, science, art, people, whatever you want to know - hard bound, organized by alphabet and number, sitting shiny on a bookshelf. The dictionary, predates them, inspired them. A dictionary tells you what a word or topic is, but an encyclopedia explains it. Encyclopedias used to be a staple in most households and remain so in libraries. They're great for research, dependably true and easily citable.  If this sounds a lot like Wikipedia, it is and it isn't. They were the inspiration for Wikipedia, and for many 'modern' digital encyclopedias, but they are unalterable after publication, facts embedded in ink on paper. Wikipedia is open source, meaning anyone can publish an entry or alter one. The internet offers us all the knowledge we could ever want, but at a price: Everything you read on the inter...

Happy Sunday! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your weekend. The Sunday Post is a news meme created by Caffeinated Reviewer . I'm also linking up with Sunday Salon at ReaderBuzz . I will be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I hope you'll join me. That super ridiculous amount of snow we got hit with last month is already gone. We had a heat wave, the temperature spiking from 30 to 70 almost overnight paired with a couple rainy days, and 30-something inches of snow just vanished. But the week of warmth gave way to cold weather again, just as quickly as it came...But Spring is here and the warm weather won't be far behind. My blog is finally getting a little more action; that is to say I've been posting again and gone back to responding to comments. The A-Z Challenge has finally begun, and while I enjoy blog hopping, I'm a little wowed to think of how much prep-work I put in for it to all be over in a month. The idea for this year's challenge...

 “There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.” Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card Dystopia - an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic. Science fiction often likes to bring us visions of the future. Flying among the stars, robots, cloning, utopias... But dystopia has really taken off in recent years, providing us with visions of the future where humanity is struggling to survive or the government has taken away our rights and imposed cruel and sometimes unusual laws upon us. Sometime there are monsters, sometimes there's disease. It's become so popular there is now an end of the world scenario for almost everyone. For young adults there's Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, where the government has created a superficial world where teens are forced to undergo plastic surgery, and the wildly popular The Hunger Games by ...

  "I wanted my life to count for something, but not because I wanted to be important. People can be important and not have their life count for anything." - Justin Blaney, Evan Burl and the Falling. Review quality on my blog is not always consistent.  A lot of this has to do with the substance of the book, whether or not it's a metaphor or whether or not the author integrated his or her own life views into the story, or some other message of moral or lifestyle lesson. There are stories like  The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith  that tackle everything from cyberbullying to various types of bigotry under the guise of a who-done-it novel. There are stories advertised to be exactly what they are, contemporary fiction like  Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi  that cover cultural separation and systemic racism. They produce reviews like novellas, with endless content to study. My reviews for The Cursebreakers trilogy by Brigid Kemmerer were quite small. They were light,...

 "There are some awful things in the world, it's true, but there's also some great books." -Jo Walton, Among Others Okay, so not a very imaginative B for a book blog, but that's why I'm here: Books. Beautiful, bountiful, books. A book is a dream recorded. A book is an adventure waiting to be had. A book is a hero undiscovered. And a villain just a little bit bad. Okay, so poet I am not. But there are a lot of things to like about books. They can offer education. From a baby’s ABC book to your childhood textbooks to how-to manuals… Like how-to build that cabinet from IKEA, books journey with us every step of the way, even if we don’t like them. And if you do like them a whole new world opens up to you, or should I say worlds? Because the best part about books is their ability to take you somewhere new. With so many genres - spine tingling horror to the warmth of fairytales, to contemporary fiction with cities as familiar as the one you live in, to the strangene...

"I suppose that is the nature of monument...The monument does not say that this man or that man walked here...The feeling, at least here...and there... it remains the same." Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice Imagination is the place where your dreams are true. And it's as simple as opening a book and allowing yourself to be drawn into the world between the pages, get lost in that adventure with characters you've only just met...  Or maybe you're not much of a reader. Maybe you seek adventure through television, movies, or videogames. Getting lost in the dream may mean getting lost in the screen.  There is a place where dreamers of all types merge: the adaptations. Admittedly, some adaptations are  better than others, others deviating laughably from source material, but literary works are often translated into other forms of media. Like The Walking Dead ... Which started out as a graphic novel (not really my cup of tea) about surviving the zombie apocalypse an...