Top Ten Tuesday: Literary Settings I’d Like to Visit

The reason we read is to go somewhere else, if only in our minds. In some books the setting is merely a backdrop. But in others, it is pervasive. We can immerse ourselves in another world. These are eight literary places* I would like to visit.

*many will be in England. Control your surprise.

Ten books they should teach in high school (instead of the ones they do)

It’s kind of amazing that I became an English major considering how many books we had to read in high school that were either A) terrible, B) badly taught, or C) both. These are some ideas that I think would have been much more effective and enjoyable in high school. Maybe some of you were…

ARMCHAIR BEA 16: Surviving fictional worlds

Today we’ll talk about surviving fictional worlds. We all know that sometimes, the worlds we love in fiction, can be dangerous. Which fictional worlds would you want to live in? Which worlds are you content to stay behind the glass, so to speak, rather than wishing to dive through the page? And once you get…

REVIEW: JANE STEELE by Lyndsay Faye

In this highly imaginative adventure, the heroine is no meek governess left to wander the moors. Though she shares some unfortunate circumstances with Jane Eyre — ones she freely acknowledges to the reader — Jane Steele is a fierce, violent and stubborn. And she is a murderer. One assumes had she met a crazed, homicidal…