There should be a separate category called “Margaret Atwood”. So much of her stuff defies categorization. This book is no different, and I really enjoyed it. A book of short stories published in 1992, I fervently wish my freshman in highschool self could have stumbled upon Atwood, instead I was reading Stephen King. No shade on King, but Atwood’s feminist sensibilities could have really helped me figure out some important things so much sooner than I did. Not all of these short stories are winners, […]
I guess being dead gives you a different perspective on life
And the Harry Dresden binge continues. Other readers on this site have made it known that the series gets better starting with book four and I don’t doubt that. Despite my impatience with Susan (when did she become the overdone girlfriend-slash-horror-movie-twit?) this book got me deeper into the whole mythos and seems to be setting things up for books and books to come. There is a a lot more going on with the Nevernever, not the least of which is Harry’s Godmother, Leanansidhe. There is some rich territory […]
The fever dreams of John Keats.
I’m a visual person. With me, things have to be neat, aesthetically pleasing, and in some sort of discernible order (even if that order is nothing but visually appealing chaos), otherwise I get cranky. I like charts and graphics and brightly colored pictures. This probably has something to do with the fact that I have synesthesia, specifically grapheme → color synesthesia. For me, everything has a color, and in turn, colors provoke emotions. My brain also automatically attempts to visualize intangible ideas and concepts and place […]
A searing vision of post-apocalypse Africa in sci-fi
I’m currently planning a contemporary global literature course (for a variety of reasons), and I’ve been trying to extend my specialty in contemporary fiction to texts and foci outside my little niche. So when my friend M raved about Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death on Goodreads, I was intrigued. Okorafor herself had read an article from The Washington Post about rape as ethnic cleansing in the Sudan and was inspired to write about the child of one such violent conception. A young Okeke woman is […]