A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. Published 2012. Genre: Upmarket. Setting: Though the book doesn’t give specifics, the reader assumes it takes place in contemporary Sweden. “And you should never befriend something if there’s a possibility it may take a fancy to eating you in your sleep.” Ove is a man who desires… Read More A Man Called Ove
My love for time travel fiction started long ago. The first novel I remember reading in this clouded sub-genre was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I was twelve and was astounded by the idea of shifting through time and dimensions. I followed that with Well’s The Time Machine and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, discovering the… Read More As a Stranger Give It Welcome
My introduction to the legendary Robin Hood was the 1970’s era Disney film. Oh how I loved that fox. Looking back, he was a quintessential Robin Hood. Honorable, yet a rogue. Jovial, yet aggrieved by injustice. It was the perfect combination of traits to make a little girl want to search the woods for a… Read More The Last Arrow
“I don’t want to go to school and learn solemn things,” says Peter Pan in J.M. Barrie’s beloved novel, Peter Pan. This quote makes me think of the college literature courses I was so excited to take but with which I quickly became disenchanted. At the time, literary analysis seemed like a sterile autopsy of… Read More Second to the Right, and Straight on Till Morning
Kid: Mom, I’m hungry. Me: Oh. What time is it? 3? I’m sorry. Just grab a snack, and we’ll have an early dinner. Kid: What’s for dinner? Me: Oh. I don’t know. Chipotle sound good? This pretty much sums up every day of this summer. Just change the name of the fast food establishment. Don’t… Read More Summer Mom
I am a member of the Historical and Time Slip Novels Book Club, and several recent posts concerned historical authenticity in novels. Do writers of historical fiction have a responsibility to their readers to represent accurately that period of history they are writing about? The answer is yes, but, like the other members of the group, I have seen writers… Read More Guardians of the History
I recently cleaned out the cabinet into which I had sloughed the reams of paper that lined the years of my life. It took me nearly a week to sort it all. One, because there was so much to go through, and two, because it was the most melancholy sort of time machine imaginable. I was sucked into… Read More Trash and Poetry
Homeschooling my two kids this year has had its fair share of ups and downs. One upside is giving them a broader introduction to Shakespeare. Right now we are reading an interpretation of Hamlet titled Hamlet for Kids by Lois Burdett. We read several pages from this every day, recording the famous quotations, talking about… Read More Shakespeare As Life