Books Category
The Year of Reading Women
Posted on December 13, 2015 1 Comment
There’s an important essay going around that, if you haven’t read it yet, you should read now before finishing this post. It’s called On Pandering by Claire Vaye Watkins, who is known to me by her fantastic 2013 debut collection of short stories, Battleborn, which won five literary awards. The essay is actually a speech […]
The Right Word
Posted on August 2, 2012 7 Comments
I’m always so impressed with writers who construct amazing sentences comprised of exactly the right words. I try to do this with my own writing, but know it’s a talent that needs much developed. I recently asked my writing friend Kim Davis, who writes beautiful poetry, for advice on polishing my word-choice skills. She had […]
Every Bookshelf is Illuminated
Posted on August 1, 2012 2 Comments
I love libraries. If you’re a writer, no doubt you do, too. So it’s wonderful to see that these buildings still exist — especially in the age of digital books — and winning awards for their architectural design. The Castro Leal Library in Mexico City is one such place. It recently won first prize in […]
Literary Fiction is a Mental Workout
Posted on July 9, 2012 7 Comments
Just when I was getting worried about the waning interest in fiction comes this little piece of research from a professor at Stanford University. Joshua Landy, an associate professor of French and Italian, found that literary works of fiction offer “a new set of methods for becoming a better maker of arguments, a better redeemer […]
Your E-Book Is Reading You
Posted on June 29, 2012 3 Comments
I don’t have a Kindle or any other kind of e-book. I prefer paper to plastic when it comes to a “screen.” I’ve said it before in other forums, but the ideal electronic book for me would be a paperback-like object — one that was bendable, smelled like paper and had 200 or so pages […]
Pop Up Books for Grown Ups
Posted on June 21, 2012 1 Comment
In this world filling fast with digital books, I love to see that paper books are still going a long way toward capturing the imagination of readers. Thank good for artists like Mengyu Chen. Check out her pop-up books for grown ups. And then ask yourself, What if there were pop-up libraries devoted only to […]
Pop-Up Libraries Popping Up
Posted on June 8, 2012 2 Comments
I loved Robin Coyle’s post a couple of weeks ago about Cozy Bookstores. It made me reminisce for the future (is that possible?), when e-books become ubiquitous and bookstores disappear. Maybe we’ll see pop-up libraries, like the ones highlighted in this article from Inhabitat. The “buildings” are unconventional, like an old phone booth or a […]
Tracy Staedter 