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Nonsense Novels by Stephen Leacock: He flung himself from the room, flung...
Stephen Leacock was a silly Canadian man who lived from 1869-1944. At some point in his life, he decided to write a book making fun of all the other books. The forward to the modern day edition of...
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Who Is Jean Shepherd? Just a Man in Love With Words. And Maybe Himself.
Jean Shepherd is a writer who revels, bathes, and frolics in the English language.You have all sorts of writers: utilitarian, plot-driven, wanting-their-prose-to-be-poetry-without-writing-poetry, and...
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Who Is Lucretia Mott and What Did She Do?
Lucretia Mott, guys. Damn. I've always just kind of thought of her as one of those older suffragists who probably wrote some things for ladies and then Elizabeth Cady Stanton went charging forward with...
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When Pennsylvania Hall Burned: The Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society and the Mob
Lucretia Mott was not the only one fighting for abolition in Philadelphia. There was also:I love this picture because underneath their severe hairstyles this looks likeany social justice group photoI...
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2016: The Year Everything Was a Garbage Fire, Including My Reading Stats
Getting a real job that requires, y'know, time and energy and attention, has played havoc with my Goodreads stats, let me tell you. Said job, plus a girlfriend who, while being extremely supportive of...
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Mary Astor's Purple Diary by Edward Sorel: So this is how obsessions look to...
I have a lot of thoughts about Mary Astor's Purple Diary, most of which can be summed up in the notes I made on my voice recorder while walking in downtown Chicago, which begins with "You know how you...
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2017: Everything feels weird and I'm exhausted
How...did previous generations cope with rage fatigue and a constant sense of impending doom? Oh, I know — they just died at like age 35. In the Middle Ages, at least. People in the '60s just did...
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Fight On Like Our Foremothers and Forefathers
The Women's March was a tremendous day of protest and solidarity, and a worldwide announcement that we will not quietly accede to this unprecedented situation. But it's over. And I'm left with this...
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Lives in Ruins: A Book Review Tempered by the New World Order
WHAT AN APT TITLE FOR OUR TIMESA book about archaeologists! ("why does this matter," she said, curled in a ball in the corner) Bop around the world with Marilyn Johnson! ("nothing matters now") See...
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Matthew Bowman's "The Mormon People": A Book I Slightly Side-Eye
Matthew Bowman's The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith is good. He tries to be unbiased, which is REALLY HARD when you're writing about a religion, since most people's religions sound...
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Strikemakers and Strikebreakers by Sidney Lens: Strikes! Strikes in America!
Mm. Can you feel it? Labor history. Just what we all want to talk about.I was perusing floor 4 of the downtown main branch of the Chicago Public Library when I found Sidney Lens's Strikemakers and...
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The Girl on the Train: Everyone read it so I read it
Yeah, I read The Girl on the Train well after everyone else, but now I've done it, so I am part of the cultural zeitgeist. This is Gone Girl all over again. And in so many ways! First off: missing or...
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How the English Suffragettes Helped Radicalize Us | International Women's Day
SO, women getting the vote in 1920 was a long process involving a lot of work that had been in motion since the early 1800s, but let's ignore the entire 19th century and jump forward to the early 20th...
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A Quick Rundown of Irish Lesbian Author Emma Donoghue's Books for St...
HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY! What better way to celebrate than quickly running through an Irish lesbian author's work with little tidbits about each book.I googled "lesbian st patricks day"These aren't all...
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Between the Wars by Philip Ziegler: 1919 says "Haha like that'll ever happen...
HO BOY. World War I and World War II. What happened between them! Philip Ziegler can tell you. Some of it, anyway.If history isn't even really your thing, this book feels particularly timely, as it...
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She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan: More transgender memoirs, please
You know how last year you'd catch a random episode of I Am Cait, and suddenly you'd be like, who is this extremely articulate and intelligent woman talking on this reality show and why does her name...
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The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black: Vampires! Vampires everywhere!
I took a break from life to read some sweet sweet fiction.Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is about a world where--VAMPIRES! VAMPIRES EVERYWHERE! Except more specifically in Coldtowns, which...
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March & April 2017 Reading
March and April were pretty damn good reading months for me, meaning I read 14 books between them, and YES COMIC VOLUMES COUNT AS BOOKS. Kind of.Broken down into fun genres they are:COMICSThe Beauty,...
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London has many leatherbound books and smells of rich mahogany
I brought upwards of 20 books back with me from England. Following the excellent advice of Jenny from Reading the End, I packed an empty suitcase so carting the inevitable bookhaul home wouldn't be a...
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Sex Object by Jessica Valenti: Is Feminism Changing?
I brought Sex Object with me to London, because why wouldn't you want to read a feminist memoir that refuses to be optimistic when you're on a week-long trip?Jessica Valenti is obviously a Name in...
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