I thought about only including historical fiction in my “haunting books” this year, but a few novels set in current times haunted me more—because their plots are so similar to what we see in the news all too often. These novels are Luckiest Girl Alive, by Jessica Knoll, This Is […]
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Haunting Books: World War I and Its Aftermath
Today’s “haunting book” post features two historical novels, Fall of Giants, by Ken Follett, and A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. Follett’s book is a panorama of Europe and the U.S. from before World War I through that war’s conclusion. Towles’s book is an exquisite cameo of life in […]
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Impact of Shorter Attention Spans on Readers and Writers
Twice in one day last week, I encountered references to people’s reduced ability to focus these days. Our shorter attention spans are due largely to the ever-present distractions from technology—and I know this is true, based on my own behavior. The first time this issue surfaced was during the Association […]
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Discovering Jane Austen
Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817, two hundred years ago tomorrow. I first encountered her novels in the spring of 1970, when I was in the ninth grade and cooped up at home with the mumps. I didn’t have a bad case of the mumps, and I felt pretty […]
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Mid-Continent Public Library ReadLOCAL Initiative
I wrote last week about National Library Week, and I announced that the Mid-Continent Public Library was now offering my books, Lead Me Home, and Now I’m Found. This week I want to tell you about the library’s new ReadLOCAL initiative, which MCPL announced last week. As I’ve written before, […]
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Libraries Transform—Celebrate National Library Week, April 9-15, 2017
This week, April 9-15, 2017, is National Library Week. It’s a time to celebrate libraries and library workers and to promote library use and support. According to the American Library Association website, the theme for National Library Week this year is “Libraries Transform.” I’ve always had a soft spot in […]
Continue readingHow Do You Choose What To Read?
I mentioned in a recent post that I’m a part of Read Local Kansas City. I am also a part of another “read local” organization—Hometown Reads, which lists books by local authors in many cities across the U.S. Go check out this site and see what books have been written […]
Continue readingOn Rocking Horses, Reading About Horses, and Real Horses
I’ve posted about my first Christmas before. Someone in the family—my father or grandfather—was good enough to take a picture of all the presents I received from Santa Claus before I was awake to see them. (Not that, at eight months, I could have done too much damage to them.) […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: The Bookseller, by Cynthia Swanson
Like A Murder in Time, The Bookseller haunted me because of how the novel deals with time and reality, though The Bookseller is not a time travel story. In this debut novel by Cynthia Swanson, the protagonist, Kitty Miller, owns an independent bookstore in the early 1960s, together with her […]
Continue readingA Review of the Amazon Bookstore in Seattle
On a recent trip to Seattle, I took some time to go to the Amazon bookstore in University Village. I wanted to see what the behemoth online retailer would do with a bookstore. Although Amazon began as an online bookseller, it has morphed into the Wal-Mart of the Internet. It […]
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