Hmm…

Tag: books

  • Making Fun of Readers?

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    harmamae
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     I would never make fun of anyone who loved to read. – Juliet Ashton, in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society People who love to read get made fun of, sometimes. This is probably leftover from childhood, when the bookworms were thought of as kids who sat in the corner and had no…

  • Books, Books, Books!

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    harmamae
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    A logical follow-up to last week’s post about libraries is have one celebrating books. Here is a bit of verse by Elizabeth Barrett Browning – I quoted her once before in ‘From Recluse to Romance,’ which was part of my Real-life Romance series. I haven’t actually read much of her work, because of my somewhat…

  • Oh, Libraries!

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    harmamae
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    “Human beings can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.” – Saul Bellow, in “Him with His Foot in His Mouth”, from Him with His Foot in His Mouth and Other Stories (1984) I once made an acquaintance with a man who had the most amazing library. It wasn’t the biggest library…

  • Why Do Writers Write?

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    harmamae
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    “Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there.” – Thomas Berger, apparently There never are enough good books out there. Good books exists, but once they’re read it’s hard to find another one – so I do write to fill the gap in books I love to read. On reflection, this is maybe one of…

  • Unicorns in the Streets: What is Genre, Anyway?

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    harmamae
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    J.K. Rowling just released her latest book yesterday, and surprise, surprise, it is not about wizards. Or magic. Or unicorns. She has firmly departed her old stomping grounds of children’s fantasy, and forayed into what might be called contemporary adult fiction. Which got me thinking – why do we draw such hard and fast lines…

  • Let’s Just Blame the Plot on Someone’s Sex Drive

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    harmamae
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    The Problems with Leaving Romance up to “Overwhelming Attraction” You know what I hate? I hate when romantic comedies or romance novels set up a perfectly good antagonistic relationship between two main characters (you know, where they take an instant dislike to each other, like in the beginning of Pride and Prejudice), and then easily…

  • The Dangerous Business of Recommending Novels

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    harmamae
    in

    And the Dangerous Business of Reading Recommendations Someone lends you a book, telling you it’s “fantastic,” “will change your life forever,” or that you “have to read it.” You take and swear you’ll read it. Then it sits on your bookshelf for the next twelve months, while you stare at it and promise yourself you…

  • Escaping Our Dystopian Futures

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    harmamae
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    If I wanted to know how horrible this world can be, I’d watch the news. Like I said before, when I read, I read books to remind myself of the good things that can exist in this world. That’s not to say I don’t read stories where bad things happen. In some of my favourite…

  • Remembering E-book Details – Harder Than With Print

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    harmamae
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    I realized I should’ve mentioned earlier that no post would be going up yesterday, since it was Good Friday and a holiday (and wow, I was glad to have a holiday after writing so many history papers!) Instead, I’m putting up a short post today. I came across this article on Time.com the other day,…

  • I Need to Read More Books

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    harmamae
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    If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you’ve probably started to see a pattern. I know I have, from writing it. The same books keep coming up over and over. If you were to take a guess at which books exactly were my favourite, what would you come up with? Say Lord of the…