The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby (Dzanc, May 7) In the mood for a historical novel? This one is a Victorian thriller about a young woman who, abandoned by her mother, grew up in a Birmingham workhouse. She is now about to begin work as a servant, but she has very little idea about how things work in a respectable house. She is haunted by a violent past and the loss of her dearest friend....
A Book Cover Design Society For French book covers! A post shared by A Book Cover Designer Society (@abcdsociety) on Oct 25, 2018 at 1:11am PDT book Cover Gallery A post shared by Book Cover Gallery (@bookcovergallery) on Oct 31, 2018 at 5:22am PDT Book Flat Lay A post shared by Books Feature Account (@bookflatlay) on May 25, 2018 at 7:37am PDT CVRLVR A post shared by CVRLVR (@cvrlvr) on Oct 4, 2018 at 8:09pm PDT...
Before that, a primer on the public domain. 2020 marks the second year that January 1 means we receive new titles into the public domain. It used to happen annually, but in 1998, the Copyright Term Extension Act added 20 years to all copyright. With those extensions expiring, though, new titles will continue to enter annually. The public domain means that material belongs to the general public. There’s no fear of copyright infringement on books, movies, and other media that hits the public domain, meaning that anyone can do anything creative they wish—this is why we’ve seen things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the past....
I have an embarrassing amount of bookends — most of which are just stacked around my library because my bookshelves are too full to accessorize. Unicorns? Check. Ampersands? Obviously. Metal blocks in various colors? Yep. And when I receive more bookends as gifts, I’m not even mad. It’s just an excuse to find somewhere else around the house to store some freestanding books. As decor, of course. But that doesn’t mean I’m not imagining my life without these gorgeously unique bookends....
Journalist. Activist. Feminist. All these words are accurate for describing Ida B. Wells. While she is best known for shining a light on the atrocities of lynching, the accomplishments she achieved during her life time have had a lasting effect on journalism, civil rights, and feminism as a whole. But what exactly did she do to cause these impacts? And what kind of effect has it had in our modern world?...
Caesar has made regular appearances in literature and media. From Dante’s Inferno to Gretchen’s harried essay in Mean Girls, Julius Caesar has become somewhat of a folk character. via GIPHY When Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is performed, small revisions are often made by the director to stir up comparison between the text and contemporary politics. A prime example is Orson Welles’s 1937 adaptation, Caesar. Welles used a bare stage, modern military dress, and sharp lighting cues, all of which evoked comparison to fascist Italy and Nazi Germany....
Cara Chance is the North Regional Library Branch Manager in the Lafayette library system, and she has spoken out against these policies, particularly regarding bans of LGBTQ materials. She also put up a three-sided display of teen romance novels in June: one general display, one with titles that had been adapted into movies, and one featuring LGBTQ teen romances. In a board meeting about Pride displays, Chance said that board members can tell LGBTQ residents that they are not allowed to be represented at the library, but that she will not: “that discrimination rests squarely on your shoulders....
via GIPHY But some reference and book questions stick out more than others. They stand out either because they were truly great questions or because they were absolutely ridiculous. Either way, patrons never fail to keep me on my toes. Just when I think a decade of public libraries has allowed me to see and hear it all, another question or situation leaves me stunned. Here are some of my most memorable patron interactions: Patron (shouting out loud as soon as she walks in the library): “I want to get a divorce from my husband and I was told I could do it here at the library!...
And then I had my very first literary theory class. “Lord,” I thought, “they sure are trying to suck the magic out of this.” The difficulty and abstruseness of Derrida or Jameson or Benjamin, though, were not the most severe blows my true belief in literature would take that semester. No, it was the introductory chapter of Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory that delivered the unkindest cut. (It remains a surprisingly accessible primer that I would recommend for those interested in an overview of the field)....
Although honestly, I prefer it when judges admit that there was a struggle over which book, story, or poem to choose. Once, I asked lit-prize judge Sophia Vasalou if her committee, which chose the 2017 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, had been unanimous. She told me: “I can’t enter into our discussion of specific books, but unanimous we certainly weren’t.” She added: “How strange would that have been?” As administrator of my own small lit prize, I agree that it would have been strange indeed....
The literary scene in Edinburgh is something straight out of a book. Maybe you know the city from the pages of a book, or you remember it from Infinity War, or maybe you’ve heard of a wizard born in an Elephant House. Either way, you’ve probably heard something about Scotland’s capital because its magic seeps into the rest of the world, beckoning. When you walk among the cobblestones, there’s something inherently fantastical and eerie living beneath a city watched by the bones of the old castle....
My friend, Allison, posed this question during a four-way video call, the social-distancing equivalent of dinner with friends. After all, even those of us who are perfectly content to grab our books and social distance for days in a row need a “night out” now and then. When Allison gave us our first mission, to find a book with something written on the inside cover or title page, it suddenly occurred to me that a virtual scavenger hunt is a brilliant way for us book lovers to stay connected with friends—and with our books—during COVID-19 social distancing....
Then came the lows when I would cry myself to sleep and barely get out of bed, making me realize that something was off. Yet, busy with the university life, I didn’t think too much of it. Fast-forward to 2008 after my wedding, I started having some serious up and down episodes when I worked as a journalist and editor at The Miami Herald. That’s when I realized I needed to get some serious help....
H. P. Lovecraft is almost as famous for his racism and antisemitism as he is for his cosmic horror fiction. While many problematic authors of the past have been defended by apologists, with the repeated refrain “they were a product of their time,” this already-flimsy defense cannot be applied to Lovecraft. As Jason Sanford notes in a blog post, Lovecraft was virulently racist even by the standards of the 1910s....
If you are still in a quiz-taking mood, why not find out… which Weasley sibling you are what Hogwarts house you belong in what your best class at Hogwarts would be which Harry Potter side character you are most like Or take another Harry Potter quiz on Book Riot.
So what is mood? It’s the atmosphere of a narrative. Mood takes into account the book’s settings, descriptions, and attitude of the story. The mood of a novel is what the reader feels about the story, pulled from the elements within it. Mood is similar to a sister literary device called tone, but tone is the attitude the author or main character of the story has. Tone doesn’t care what the reader feels—the concern is the character or author—whereas mood is entirely within the eyes of the reader themselves....
Golden Age writers, however, understood that the secret is not throwing ever bigger threats at Superman, giving him a mullet, or making him a stalker and/or murderer. No, the secret is simple: put him in absolutely ludicrous workplace romcom scenarios. My favorite comes in Superman #20 (February 1943), written by Superman creator Jerry Siegel and drawn by Ed Dobrotka. Clark is naturally stunned that his secret has gotten out, but then Lois laughs and explains that it was all a prank: she had Carl, the head pressman at the Daily Planet, print up a few fake newspapers as a gag....
That last option would make for the least romantic romance of all time. Characters’ inner lives are everything in romance. We already know through genre conventions that characters are getting together in the end. So delving into their thoughts and feelings helps readers understand the actions that delay that happy ending all the way until the end, even if those actions frustrate us. I think of Courtney Milan’s The Duke Who Didn’t, an utterly charming historical romance about two reunited childhood sweethearts....
And then I started to get sick. Well, not sick per se—but really bad allergies. You know the kind: carrying around a box of tissues, that aching sore throat that doesn’t go away and feels like your throat is stuffed with pillows, and the headache and fatigue. I loaded myself up with vitamin C, took some allergy meds, washed my hands often, and hoped for the best. I could only go one day, Thursday, the first day....
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