Story time… it’s a long one I am nearing the end of the writing process for my first book manuscript. It is a historical fiction novel aimed at middle readers (typically defined ages 9-12, although I’ll admit that the vocabulary is rather more advanced than most 9-10-year-old children). The novel is the first in what…
Tag: fiction
Book Review: The Secret Garden
I grew up in the heyday of the 90s movies. Disney was still animating by hand, cartoons were a normal part of weekend plans and live-action movies had that specific film-processing quality that made everything feel magical and nostalgic. Such was the case for the 1993 film, The Secret Garden, which I watched with consistent…
Book Review: Persuasion
When the trailer for the new film Persuasion came out, I watched it eagerly with the anticipation of seeing familiar characters and plot lines. Feeling confident that I had read all of the published novels of Jane Austen, I was thoroughly confused when not one scene or theme jogged my memory. Of course, when I…
Book Review: The Bluest Eye
I picked up a copy of Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize-winning novel, The Bluest Eye sometime last year in a Barnes and Noble haul. As is typical of me, I often buy 4-5 books at a time while already immersed in 2-3 books, so the new titles get temporarily shelved. After finishing World of Wonders last…
Book Review: Uncommon Type – Some Stories
Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks is a collection of fictional stories that all have some connection (if an extremely loose one) to a typewriter. While each vignette starts with a photo of a typewriter, the machinery rarely plays a part in the plot. The one story that did revolve around the actual typing tool —…
Book Review: The Bourne Supremacy
This time last year, I was writing a review for The Bourne Identity, the first in Robert Ludlum’s trilogy. As I discovered while reading that book, the storylines of the book and the movie series are incongruent. Other than being fairly similar in the characterization of the main character, Jason Bourne, the screen writers really…
Book Review: The Kite Runner
I added Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner to my books to read list a few years ago. I remember that it received lots of attention when it hit the bookshelves in 2003. I knew it was popular and I wanted to find out why. I didn’t even realize it was a novel until I received…
Book Review: Sense and Sensibility
I really love Jane Austen’s books – or at least most of them. I did not mean to read two Austen books back-to-back, but I became really disenchanted with the nonfiction bore I kept attempting to finish reading (and I was feeling the “do more of what you love” empowerment) so I threw my reading…
Book Review: Northanger Abbey
Pride and Prejudice and Emma, two of Jane Austen’s other books rank as two of my favorite novels of all time. Recently I remembered that I’ve owned a tattered copy of Northanger Abbey for years, but I hadn’t actually read it yet. Honestly there’s no better time to visit Austen’s world than the holidays when…
Book Review: The Bourne Identity
I remember when The Bourne Identity movie came out. My dad and I agreed that it was SO GOOD. My mom, on the other hand, was appalled. She had read the book first and claimed that the film depicted a wildly different story line. I ignored her and continued blissfully enjoying the entire Bourne film…
L.M. Beatty 