"Shakespeare has the power to educate convicted killers and help them examine the choices they made that landed them here – and how to avoid making those choices again." No one would be more surprised than William Shakespeare to learn his words could mean so much to a group of inmates 400 years after his…
Four books walk into a bar. (Tell me if you've heard this one.) A Rom-Com, a Chick-Lit, a Vic-Lit and a YA. The Rom-Com has been telling jokes since they all packed into an Uber. Harback YA cracked a few, but they went over Rom-Com and Chick-Lit's heads. Vic-Lit had simply smiled and shaken her head at all three…
I know I'm late to the Gillian Flynn party, but better late than never to have read at all. GONE GIRL, published by Penguin Random House in 2012, is Flynn's most recent work – not including her short story THE GROWNUP, originally entitled “What Do You Do?" as part of George R. R. Martin’s ROGUES (already added to my reading shelf). It's tricky…
Anthony Doerr's ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE (published by Scribner in 2014) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and received the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Clearly, you do not need my recommendation for a novel with two of the most distinguished awards in literature, but I'll give it to you anyway. In one word,…
EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL is the New York Times best-selling author of four novels, including the outstanding dystopian STATION ELEVEN which was a 2014 National Book Award Finalist & Winner of the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award. Mandel is originally from British Columbia but now resides in New York City with her husband. Her other novels are: Last Night in Montreal (2009) The…
Christina McKenna is a best-selling author from Northern Ireland and is best known for her four novels all set in a small Irish village in the county of Derry. The Misremembered Man is the first in the series, followed by The Disenchanted Widow, The Godforsaken Daughter and The Spinster Wife (which I have not yet read so…
Outlander fans everywhere are always looking for ways to entertain and amuse themselves during the harrowing dry spells. While we all love pictures of our Jamie and Claire – or mainly Jamie (admit it) –talking, tweeting and blogging about Outlander, I thought I'd take the opportunity to introduce new novels I've recently discovered, especially those by…
The new Writer’s Digest publication of the classic, Jane Eyre, includes annotated notes by K.M. Weiland. Weiland is the award-winning author of the non-fiction best-sellers: Outlining Your Novel and Structuring Your Novel. When she's not working on her own writing projects, she's mentoring authors through her website: Helping Writers Become Authors. Before reading a single savory note by Weiland, the…
Jane Eyre: Writer's Digest Annotated Classics, with notes by K. M. Weiland, will be available for purchase July 24, 2014. But Weiland – best-selling author, writing mentor, and creator of the Helping Writers Become Authors website – gives us a fun sneak peek into her upcoming release in her blog post: 10 THINGS WRITERS CAN LEARN FROM JANE EYRE. Even…
I want to shine the spotlight on a small (relatively speaking) romance novel which gave me more chuckles than any romantically-inclined book I can remember. The novel to which I am referring is entitled Crazy Little Thing by Tracy Brogan and was a Romance Writer’s of America Best First Book finalist in 2013. You can learn more about Ms. Brogan and her…
