Category: Uncategorized
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Destination Unexpected: A Trip Into Forensic Book Ownership
Listen, dear readers, my book-buying problem is no secret. I buy a lot of books every year, and apparently I’m not able to curb this addiction in any meaningful way—even as I fight an increasingly lost battle with where I’m going to put all of those books. That said, I’m not one to entirely throw…
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My Best Books of 2023
Here we are, folks, at the end of another year, and I thought we’d keep a new tradition going by doing a round up of my favorite books I read this year. Like last year, this list will be my favorite books that I read this year, not necessarily ones published this year (though I…
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Original Chick Lit: 19th Century American Women Writers, Readers, and the Little House that Millbank Built
“Ma spread the between-meals red-checked cloth on the table, and on it she set the shining-clean lamp. She laid there the paper-covered Bible, the big green Wonders of the Animal World, and the novel named Millbank.” – On the Banks of Plum Creek, chapter 17 “Every window and shutter at Millbank was closed. Knots of…
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The Fifth Horse-Man: Apocalypse and Allegory in the Roman de Fauvel
“Le jugement contre Fauvel est déjà prêt, et il sera jugé; lorsqu’il aura été condamné, il subira le châtiment éternel avec le prince des démons.” [“The judgment of Fauvel has already been set, and he will be judged. When he is condemned, he will undergo eternal punishment with the Devil.”] – le Roman de Fauvel…
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Renos and Revamps: Updates From the CMOA and CMNH
I am up to my eyeballs in pre-publication work for The Gourd and the Stars, so I’m afraid I don’t have a super substantial post for this week. But I did take a much-needed mental break trip to the Carnegie museums last week, and since there were a number of changes to exhibits and situations…
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Caught in a Bad Roman-ce Again: Medieval Myth- Making and the Octavian Romances
Somtym byffell ane aventure,In Rome ther was ane Emperoure,Als men in romance rede.He was a man of grete favoureAnd levede in joye and grete honoureAnd doghety was of dede.In tornament nor in no fyghteIn the werlde ther ne was a better knyghte,No worthier undir wede.Octovyane was his name thrughowte;Everylke man hade of hym dowteWhen he…
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Empire and Imagination: The Victorian Middle Ages and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The White Company
“So they lived, these men, in their own lusty, cheery fashion rude and rough, but honest, kindly and true. Let us thank God if we have outgrown their vices. Let us pray to God that we may ever hold their virtues. The sky may darken, and the clouds may gather, and again the day may…
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Preview for THE GOURD AND THE STARS
As previously promised, I want to take this week to talk a little about my next book, The Gourd and the Stars, as I’ve entered the last pre-formatting editing phase and my artist at SelfPubBookCovers is beginning work on a cover. I thought I still might be jumping the gun a bit, but seeing how…
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America’s Eternal Sweetheart: The Transatlantic Love Affair with Lafayette
“Lafayette, we are here.” – Col. Charles E. Stanton, visiting Lafayette’s tomb after the arrival of American forces in Paris during WWI “As I admired this noble countenance of stone, a wry smile crept across the [French] curator’s face. Suddenly the silence was broken. ‘Why,’ asked the curator, ‘should we have a bust of Lafayette?’”…
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Different Worlds, Different Tongues: The Life and Works of Toru Dutt
One of the required classes for my English Literature BA at the University of Pittsburgh was one called “World Literature in English,” presumably an attempt by the program to make sure its graduates were exposed to at least a handful of writers who weren’t white at the end of four years of reading. Rather than…
Sarah Holz 