for lovers of literature and culture
I wanted to immerse myself and be preoccupied with nothing Sequoyah, pg. 58 With his single mother in jail, Sequoyah, a fifteen-year-old Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care with the Troutt family, Literally and figuratively scarred by his mother’s years of substance abuse, Sequoyah keeps mostly to himself, living with his emotions pressed deep […]
This book is in my top ten contenders for this year’s best novels. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, souther black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their […]
Beloved is one of the few stories that shook me. Maybe it’s because of the heightened awareness I have right now on the struggles and emotions tearing through our communities. But these aren’t new. The social issues being brought to the American attention have been woven in our culture for a very, very long time. […]
Miracle Creek gripped me. I tore through its pages in just a few days. When I got to the acknowledgements and read that this was Kim’s first novel, I was shocked. My husband asked me to lie. Not a big lie. He probably didn’t even consider it a lie, and neither did I, at first […]
Happy Reading, this Earth Day! In the summer of 1937, Amelia Earhart is the most famous woman in the world – a record-breaking pilot, best-selling author, and a modern woman shattering the glass ceiling in the early days of aviation. And then she vanishes. In Tampe, Florida, 15-year-old Lizzie Friedlander spends her afternoons glued to […]
A bestselling modern classic – both poignant and funny – about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor’s dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world. A story that is, initially, far sadder than you’d expect (assuming you love puppies) and ends far happier than you […]
“That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” The Alchemist is a should-be-classic classic. I didn’t know about the admiration behind Coelho and his most famous work when I picked it up. It was just a small book I had heard […]
I took a break last week to follow the impeachment trial in the Senate. I don’t plan to share my opinions here but I felt so engrossed in everything going on that tackling anything else – even reading – seemed overwhelming. That said, I did finish my third book in my democratic primary reading list. […]
The Cannabis Craze offers the fundamentals of marijuana use with the hopes that adults and teenagers alike will be able to practice harm reduction and avoid addiction. While it doesn’t present any groundbreaking research or discoveries – nor is it inherently interesting (responsible drug use rarely is) – it does offer simply-stated conclusions about responsible marijuana […]
I’m not one for horror but Stephen King has a way of writing tragedy that is utterly different from other authors. While some pages made my stomach turn, the story was brilliant. Enough predictability to make me feel smart and detective-title-worthy but all the twists and turns necessary to keep me surprised and far from bored.
H O L L Y + O A T E S 