A note before we get started: I am reviewing both parts of Emily Foster’s duology The Belhaven Series. I will likely get a bit spoilery about these two books, as their author set out to do an interesting thing, and did it. These books were on my radar because of Malin’s reviews from last year (#BlameMalin). Well, specifically her review of the first book, How Not to Fall. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that the book ends both on a cliffhanger, and that […]
Sometimes it take a literal plane crash to elucidate our lives
Last month over on Oohlo in discussing the season three finale of Noah Hawley’s television program Fargo I had the following comment: “Hawley is also never just telling us a plot, he’s crafting a story. Not everything we see moves the story along, but everything means something, grows out the larger themes.” As I was reading Before the Fall, I had the same feeling about his literary work. On the surface this is a story about a plane crash and the people who perished and […]
When PattyKates Says Read the Book…
This is the story of a book. This was a book which I would never have found on my own, but our dynamic reviewing duo PattyKates located it in their literary travels and recommended, nay demanded, that we citizens of Romancelandia experience. But alas, it was not available to me via library or Nook and I thought I would perhaps be left out of the reading and the discussion. But, our very own Prolixity Julien procured the book for me via Kindle and once more […]
“No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.”
In April of 2017 Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. I am relieved to discover that, because the idea that there was a better, more eloquent, well researched, and presented book released in the competition period I would have eaten my hat. Or your hat, I have trouble finding one that fits me. Desmond is a Harvard sociologist and a MacArthur “Genius” grant winner, which is shorthand for this dude is awesome (he’s in […]