Fiction

My Literary Doppelganger
Books have been an important part of my life since I can remember. As a child with a disability, I had a fairly isolated upbringing, so I found the companionship I lacked in works of fiction. As such, the list of books that have influenced me is a long one!
By Morgan Rhianna Bland2 years ago in BookClub
Atlas Shrugged
When I was in high school, I was in no way interested in politics. I just wanted to trust that the public would vote the right people into power and the government would do what was in our best interest. That’s what they taught us in class, right? How bills become laws and those laws are passed to protect us citizens and make society better as a whole.
By Bethany G2 years ago in BookClub
My Love of Magic
Harry Potter. How to start? I was first introduced to the Wizarding World during Primary school. I can’t remember how old, but I remember reading the series slowly through the years (because it wasn’t my assigned book, so I always had to read the school book first before I could read my own).
By Maddy Haywood2 years ago in BookClub
The Boy Who Lived
I first encountered the world of Harry Potter by eavesdropping on a friend reading the first book to her young daughter. My friend was a good narrator, and her daughter was clearly enthralled. I too got caught up in the overheard snippet of story about a resilient hero, the orphan hailed as "the Boy Who Lived."
By Sonia Heidi Unruh2 years ago in BookClub
Midnight Transformations
Before reading The Midnight Library as part of Brandy Clark's book club, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about regret. Both the concept of regrets and the specific instances themselves plagued my mind regularly. Like I'm sure many of us do, as time travel is such a prevalent ideal in our culture, I sometimes think about the top moments or actions I would go back and change if given the chance. The funny thing people don't realize is that we are constantly time traveling, and maybe that's the problem. We're always rapidly moving forward, into the future, whether we like it or not, while simultaneously traveling to the past in our minds while visiting memories, sometimes we even become stuck there. Either direction one goes, too far in the future or the past, the outcome is essentially the same: time spent not being present in the current moment. In other words: time we'll never get back spent not living our lives.
By Hailey Marchand-Nazzaro2 years ago in BookClub
Dune is Not About Oil
The prompt for the Book Club challenge is funny because it was David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation that introduced me to Dune. Dune was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It was one of my top picks at the library, besides all the Star Trek and Universal monster movies I could get my hands on. My love for the Dune universe grew in the 90s, with the books from Brian Herbert. Despite this, I would not read the first novel until 2017. Why, I am unsure. Since then I have dove as deep into the Dune universe as I can. I still have not finished the original series, due to a combination of work and school. Well, also after acquiring a copy of the encyclopedia, I decided I wanted to have the time to sit and read the series with that as my companion. Because if Dune does nothing else, it raises a lot of questions for the reader. Both in and out of the universe.
By Atomic Historian2 years ago in BookClub
The Alchemist
The Alchemist, written in two weeks by Paulo Coelho because in his words the story “was already written in his soul”. This is basically how I felt when I first read it.
By Julia Alfred2 years ago in BookClub
Through Wardrobes
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - and actually the entire Narnia series - is one of the first full books I remember my parents reading to me, then reading and even re-reading the entire set to myself at a young age, and already thinking I must re-read again when I'd forgotten too much.
By Ellen Stedfeld2 years ago in BookClub
The French Lieutenant's Woman
Introduction The books we read as teenagers for class were never our favorite books. They were just different. Full of complex themes and ideas that adults made us read for…reasons. They were a means to an end, things that you needed to study and memorize for tests and exams, rather than things to be simply enjoyed. For what seemed like the longest time, enjoyment meant escaping from these books as fast as possible.
By Louis T2 years ago in BookClub
Ten Writers I Can No Longer Read
One of the things I have learned after many years of reading and writing is that you are allowed to dismiss what you once loved; you are allowed to give up on writers who no longer speak to you and have set up a barrier in your mind to enjoyment of their work. I do not mean that I care that deeply about their political, racial, psychological or emotional issues (the list of acceptable writers would be incredibly short if I dismissed the ones who did not reach such high standards). I am simply concerned with what is on the page and how it makes me react, as Vladimir Nabokov once stated, “between the shoulder blades” (where you really do feel the work).
By Kendall Defoe 2 years ago in BookClub
Summer '23 Reads
This was a whirlwind summer. Not that I did anything fun or exciting, but just a lot happened. Well, I guess one or two exciting things happened (more on that down below). I wasn’t planning on doing one big summer recap, but I forgot to do one for June, and then I didn’t finish any novels in July, and alas.
By Victoria Brown2 years ago in BookClub
The Huntress and the Enchanted Tome
I’d just killed a man, and I wore his remnants all over my huntress tunic. Shredded, as though his claws hadn’t been trying to kill me, too. Blood-soaked, both mine and his, as though we were tearing away our layers so that we could get to the soul, vulnerable and exposed, and slice it apart.
By em2 years ago in BookClub