Category Archives: Adult

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Thistle

The year is 1976. Dana, as a black woman married to a white man, has a myriad of race-related issues in her life. It’s not a good time period for interracial marriages, and both family and friends (on both sides) … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Black City, by George Sand

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Thistle

Étienne, nicknamed Sept-Epées for his expertise with metalwork, is a young man in mid-1800s France. He belongs to the lower class, but dreams of one day escaping poverty and the doldrums of daily work to live in the Upper Town … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Market Day, by James Sturm

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Thistle

Mendleman makes rugs by hand and sells them to support his growing family in the market in early 1900s Eastern Europe. One day, however, the person who usually buys his rugs is no longer in business. Mendleman can no longer … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Visual | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Summing Up, by William Somerset Maugham

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Thistle

The Summing Up is a combination memoir and writer’s manual, similar to On Writing by Stephen King. Maugham wrote it in his mid-60s, fearing that he might be close to death and thus that he should complete this before he … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Thistle

Lieutenant Henry is an American. He’s in the Italian army. The time period is World War I. Henry drives ambulances. He drinks a lot. He eats a lot. He falls in love with a nurse named Catherine Barker. Or at … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Lies We Told, by Diane Chamberlain

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Thistle

I’m honestly not sure how to summarize this book. The back of the book description gives away nearly everything from beginning to end, all but one secret, but I can’t think of any way to describe this other than by … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Leave a comment

Thérèse Raquin, by Émile Zola

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Thistle

Thérèse lives a miserable life in a small shop in Paris. She lives with her aunt and cousin Camille. Camille is a man with poor health and a fantastic amount of pride, and Thérèse is forced to succumb both to … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Thistle

I had been told that Lahiri was a master of the short story, but I’d never read any of her work. When I picked up Interpreter after that long string of failed collections, I expected nothing more than to flip … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Dewey, by Vicki Myron

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Thistle

Many people have heard of Dewey the library cat. If you haven’t, the story goes as follows: on a cold night in a small town in Iowa, someone pushed an 8-week old kitten into the drop box at the library. … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged | Leave a comment

Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Thistle

Hurrah! I have found poetry that spoke to me, poetry that I understood, poetry that I enjoyed! Loved, in fact. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, you wonderful poet! You have proved that my search for poetry that I can connect with was … Continue reading →

Posted in 2010, Adult, Poetry | Tagged , , | 3 Comments