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When Dimple Met Rishi: I hate this book
Everyone was reading it. So I decided to read it. It didn't pan out well for The Help, but it was perfectly fine for Girl on the Train. But When Dimple Met Rishi?For those unaware, When Dimple Met...
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Samuel Johnson's House: A Tour
Dr Samuel Johnson, writer of A Dictionary of the English Language and frequent contributor to Familiar Quotations, has a home in London that is still standing. This is italicized because after watching...
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October 2017 New Book Releases That Are Probably Pretty Great
It's almost October! The month almost everything amazing gets published! Also the month right before NaNoWriMo and right near the end of the year when some of us are panicking about finishing other...
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Aurora Leigh in November!
You know how you're walking along, minding your own business, and suddenly you just stop and go "SHIT, I haven't read Aurora Leigh yet"? PROBLEM. SOLVED. TODAY. Well, in November.Yes! This November, a...
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The Witches by Stacy Schiff: Just a Buncha Assholes
In 2015, my delightful friend who was then at Little, Brown sent me their upcoming book The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff. It was an excellent book to brag about having. Did I read it? Of course...
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Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Books 1 & 2
So. Aurora Leigh by English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, written in 1856 (Dickens had just written Hard Times) is a novel in verse about an English-Italian girl and her journey to becoming a...
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Something Sunday: Good Things That Have Happened
I am all for listing things that are good in what is so increasingly becoming The Darkest Timeline that we should all have goatees by now.Fortunately, Jenny at Reading the End has started "Something...
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Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Books 3 & 4
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "You know how ladies are like windmills?"Aurora Leigh! EBB's novel in verse. This week we read Books 3 & 4, which involve Aurora making her name as a poet, talking about...
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Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Book 5
Here we are once again at the Aurora Leigh readalong, hosted by me, Alice, and this week I read only Book 5, but it was yet again really gay and a mix of genius and wtf, so lots to talk about here.We...
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2017 Books in Review
2017 was one of the hardest years of my life. I was cobbling together employment for six months, my mom got cancer, and I had a mouse living full time in my bedroom and ended up couch surfing for...
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Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy: Readalong Signup
You know what was the third bestseller of its time after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur? THAT IS CORRECT, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. No one talks about this book anymore, but it was a sci-fi...
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The Women's March 2018: Be Seen, Be Heard, Stay Angry
On January 20th, 2018, Chicago will host a second Women’s March. Those who attended the first remember the astounding numbers, miraculously warm weather, and surge of energy across the nation as...
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The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg: Magic! Also It's Pretty Fun!
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg (a lady!) caught my eye a while back because of its cover.I mean...lookit thatIt also has a lady in a late 1800s dress AND she's holding an umbrella, which...
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2018: Plotting the Year Ahead, Which Will Inevitably Fail But Here We Are
It's 2018! I don't know how I feel about things!Things feel...vaguely...better than 2017. But that's mostly because of our lovely tradition of "it's a new year!" which is preeeetty arbitrary in the...
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The Top 10 Books from The Millions Book Preview
The Millions listed the best upcoming books for the first half of 2018 and I have distilled that FURTHER through the filter of “very specific fiction but also nonfiction.”The full list is here! So here...
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Spotlight on Black Women for Black History Month
It's February! Let's read some BOOKS.Black history is notoriously underrepresented in our schools, except for the usual mentions:I focus on women's history, so here are some great American...
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#24in48: What Was Good, What Was Bad, What You Should Read
24in48, where we try to read for 24 hours out of 48, has come and gone once more. I managed 13 hours, which considering my usual average is 2, is excellent and I will take it. I attribute this to...
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Minithon the Mini Readathon: September 8, 2018
The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us.The minithon lasts 8 hours (10 AM to 6 PM CST), therefore making it a mini...
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Three Weeks: The Elinor Glynalong | Elinor Glyn's Trashy Classic
Here we are at the start of a new year, reading some 1907 trash. Feels right.I never thought you could actually read Elinor Glyn's books; she seemed like some distant untouchable literary figure,...
View ArticleThree Weeks Part II: Needs More Tiger
You love me because I give you the stimulus of uncertainty, and so keep bright your passion, but once you were sure, I should become a duty, as all women become, and then my Paul would yawn and grow to...
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Three Weeks, Part III: "Don't Speak!"
Elinor Glyn starts chapter 13 of her epic Three Weeks at Peak Glyn:Do you know the Belvedere at the Rigi Kaltbad, looking over the corner to a vast world below, on a fair day in May, when the air is...
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Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn: "Considerable Mental Tribulation Over a Woman"
THIS WEEK in Elinor Glyn's Three Weeks, week 4!Paul continues to live in a weird fever dreamYou really get a glimpse inside Elinor Glyn's head here:"My Paul, I want you never to forget this night—never...
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#24in48: The Preparening
#24in48 approaches once more, and as always, my main delight in it is making book stacks.I mean, how many of these will I in all likelihood read? Probably three. But piles of books are mine...
View ArticleThree Weeks: The Finaling
The end! It's finally done! Why I ever thought we should read an Elinor Glyn novel, I do not know, but now at least we have.I apologize, but I did like this metaphor:But no sight of her writing...
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Minithon: The Mini Readathon, January 11th, 2020
The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us.The minithon lasts 6 hours (10 AM to 4 PM CST), therefore making it a mini...
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