Blogs
GRACE NOTES - JUNE 2021
No theme this month, just a bunch of books that I have enjoyed over the past few years. Plus, a guest writer this month!! Scroll down to read our intern Max Carroll's review of Monk!
GRACE NOTES - MAY 2021
GRACE NOTES - APRIL 2021
April is Earth Month and National Poetry Month, so the focus this month is nature, poetry, and nature poetry. I’ll start with one of my favorite nature books from the past year, Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s sumptuous essay collection, World of Wonders.
GRACE NOTES - MARCH 2021
Happy Women's History Month! There have been so many great books by women released in the past few years that it would break our website to try to list them all. Instead, I'll list some of my favorite fiction, graphic novels, and essays.
Let's start with Anna North's Outlawed. Dystopian. Feminist. Western. Okay, you've just pushed three of my literary buttons.
GRACE NOTES - FEBRUARY 2021
In celebration of Black History Month, the focus is on African and African-American writers. If the events of the past year have taught us anything, it is that the voices of people of color have been ignored, and in many instances, willfully suppressed for far too long. A crucial step in combating systemic racism is to not only read and absorb the words of Black writers, but to actively do the work needed to stand up for racial justice.
GRACE NOTES - JANUARY 2021
Happy New Year! As we drag our weary souls out of the clustercuss that was 2020, there is much to look forward to. A vaccine (yes!), new leadership in the White House (cautious optimism), and, as always, new books. The cold winter months and the seemingly endless pandemic make hunkering down and reading an appealing and safe prospect.
GRACE NOTES - DECEMBER 2020
On the necessity of book clubs in plague time —
GRACE NOTES - NOVEMBER 2020
Art by Austin Kleon "Overheard on the Titanic"
GRACE NOTES - OCTOBER 2020
Fall is the perfect time to curl up with a great work of historical fiction. This month we look at Maggie O'Farrell's rich new novel -
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Hamnet Shakespeare’s sliver of a life ended at age eleven, probably due to bubonic plague. While his name appears on the cover of Maggie O’Farrell’s (I Am I Am I Am) latest novel, the book is really about his mother, Agnes.