I don’t think I’ve ever actually read The Haunting of Hill House before. I have, however, watched the movie version from the 90s one million times, due to equally strong crushes on Owen Wilson & Catherine Zeta-Jones (see also: repeat viewings of The Mask of Zorro, which I rewatched recently in a fit of nostalgia and discovered to be a truly horrible movie). Anyway, someone on here reviewed another Shirley Jackson novel (the one about the castle), so I went to the library and put her whole oeuvre on hold — The […]
Secrets, Lies & Whales
Like Caitlin_D said, this one takes a bit to get going, but Jojo definitely gets her claws in you. I flew through the last 100 pages, dying to know how this one ended. “Look out at the sea for long enough, at its moods and frenzies, at its beauties and terrors, and you’ll have all the stories you need— of love and danger, and about what life lands in your nets. And the fact that sometimes it’s not your hand on the tiller, and you […]
“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.”
Malala Yousafzai is an extraordinary young lady — brave, intelligent, well-spoken and determined to provide the basic human right of education to as many people as possible. She also likes to read the Twilight books and do her hair. I am Malala does an incredible job of introducing not just the activist Malala, but the real person as well. “Education is education. We should learn everything and then choose which path to follow.” Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human.” Yes, Malala is the […]
The Tale of Louis Zamperini
I knew about 10% of this story going into it, mostly due to the publicity surrounding the movie adaptation, so a lot of it really surprised me. It’s truly an incredible story, and the writing and research by Laura Hillenbrand fleshes it out wonderfully. “Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have […]