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Novel Journeys: The British Raj
Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, India. Source: DonaldIndia, Flickr India, symbolized by the Koh-I-Noor diamond, was long considered the jewel in the English colonial crown. However, the relationship took a...
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How I Spent My School Year: Funny Books About High School
Source: tncountryfan, Flickr With summer pretty much over, it's time to think back to school. High school can be really fun or really awful, often within the span of five minutes, so it helps to keep a...
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Invisible Women and What They Do About it
Source: BellaGaia, Flickr Tom Perrotta has written several books, including The Leftovers, which was turned into a successful television series, and Little Children, which became an acclaimed movie...
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Do You Believe In Magic?
Source: fishbulb1022, Flickr Sarah Skilton has written her first adult novel, Club Deception, and it's a doozy. Jessica, a young wife who is quickly learning the meaning of the phrase, "marry in haste,...
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The Amish, Plain and Simple
Source: Andrea.Why, Flickr As we move into Fall, our attention often turns to farms and their bounty. In Northwest Indiana and other rural communities, this can mean Amish farms. Of course, not all the...
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Mysteries from the Land of Enchantment
Shiprock, New Mexico. Source: Beau Rogers, Flickr The stark beauty of New Mexico has inspired authors from all genres. The relatively intact cultures of the Native Americans of the area, particularly...
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Books for Fans of Tom Holt
Source: Daniela Hartmann, Flickr. I just finished Tom Holt's latest, The Management Style of the Supreme Beings, and laughed pretty hard. If you're into satire, particularly that of religiosity and...
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Women of Steel: More Books About WWII
Memorial To Women in WWII, England. Source: Pickersgill Reef, Flickr I love books about World War II. I love books about strong women. Here are some emotionally involving books that combine the two. In...
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Go Big Or Go Home: Teen Girls Find Their Place
Source: 21504187@N04, Flickr We were all teenagers once, whether our memories of that time are pleasant or not. I've picked out some teen books that may be enjoyable for adults as well as the high...
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Quacks Are for Ducks: Medical Mishaps and Miscreants
Tis the season to sign up for health insurance, create health savings accounts, and get your health for the next year in order. I've found some books that will make you very glad that if you do get...
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A Visit from the Memory Squad: Books by Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan. Source: David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons. Jennifer Egan is an inventive writer, particularly in her dealings with narrative structure. She also comes up with fascinating characters and...
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Math is for Girls: What to Read if You Like Hidden Figures
Hidden Figures was a bestseller and turned into an acclaimed movie, and deservedly so. In case you've been under a rock, it's about the African American female mathematicians who were instrumental in...
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Weird Sisters and Others
Witchy women and feminine magic are favorite tropes in literature. They don't always get a fair shake, but in these books that could be filed under magical realism, they tend to come out on top in a...
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A Novel Idea: Women Coming of Age in the Patriarchy
Women often don't fare well in patriarchal societies, yet somehow these societies continue. However, there is female rebellion, especially in the young realizing that they are about to become adults...
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The Novel Lives of Women Rulers
Historical novels are filled with kings, queens, and uprisings, and it's a vibrant genre. I'm focusing this post on female heads of state you may not be familiar with, at least not as they've usually...
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Novel Women of the ‘Teens
Independent women really started to come into their own in the early 20th century. It wasn't easy, but women felt invigorated by the nearing of the millenium, when everything seemed possible. I've...
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Check Out Mysteries Set In Libraries
We librarians see some crazy things in our stints on the reference desk at Chicago Public Library, but to the best of my knowledge, murder is not one of them. However, libraries can be mysterious...
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A Life In The Theater: Memoirs
Now that the Christmas season is done, it's prime time for serious theater. However, if it's nasty cold or snow is bucketing out of the sky, or both, it might be better to curl up with a book about...
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Almost Human: Books About Artificial Intelligence
High technology is becoming ubiquitous in daily life, whether it's Alexa or the algorithms that Google uses to answer your questions and market to you. We keep trying to make our machines smarter, but...
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Going With Gonzo: Hunter S. Thompson By Those Who Knew Him
Hunter S. Thompson had a tendency to self-mythologize, and let's face it, many of the substances he consumed did not lend themselves to objective self-reflection. With that in mind, I'm putting forth a...
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