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What I'm Reading

Stephen King’s Novel of Hope and Resilience

April 14, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

The Stand by Stephen KingGuest Post by David Armand

My kids’ last day of school was on Friday, March 13, four weeks ago today. They left class that afternoon not knowing that they wouldn’t be seeing their friends or teachers again for who knows how long. They seem worried sometimes, confused. So am I. But we’ve finally been able to settle into somewhat of a routine here at home: we made a vegetable garden in the backyard last week, bought some baby chickens and built a brooder for them. It gives everyone something to do.

And I like to spend the first hour or so of each morning—when it’s still dark outside and quiet—reading before everyone else wakes up. I’ve always done this, but now the act seems more meditative, more important than it ever has before.

You see, the day after the schools closed and I went to working remotely from home, I picked up Stephen King’s The Stand from my bookshelf. It’s an old copy and the dust jacket is torn off, tucked between the yellowed pages as a bookmark, but still I’ve been reading it every day since all this started.

It’s a long novel, just over eight-hundred pages, and I’ve spent this last month reading it for what is now the third time (I read the unabridged version, which is over a thousand pages long, in 1998; then I read it again about fifteen years later).

But now, on this third read, it seems more poignant than ever: not necessarily because it’s about a plague that wipes out most of the human population, but more because it’s a novel about the inherent sense of hope that people tend to have, about the faith we place in the goodness of others—even in the darkest of times. Which is something to remember now more than ever.


The Stand by Stephen King. Anchor, 1978.

Reviewer bio: David Armand’s latest novel, The Lord’s Acre, is forthcoming this fall from Texas Review Press.

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Filed Under: Reading Tagged With: Book Review, Book Review - NewPages, Fiction, Guest Post, What I'm Reading

Tangible Acts of Resistance

April 14, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

Dictionary of the Undoing by John FreemanGuest Post by RS Deeren

John Freeman’s Dictionary of the Undoing, a collection of twenty-six alphabetical short essays, is a reclamation project, collating a “lexicon of engagement and meaning” for progressive political protest. Freeman sees language as “the one tool being vandalized before our very eyes” in the news, on social media, and in public spheres. Starting with “Agitate” and charging through words like “Citizen” and “Hope,” Freeman highlights the ways in which the meanings of single words have been split, twisted, or ignored until they are either used against us, like in the section “Police,” or until they lose much of their power, a notion present in the section “Vote.” Of particularly high import in a book filled with immediacy, are the sections on “I” and “You.”

In “I,” Freeman tackles the internet as used today: to promote and protect an image of ourselves, to ensconce the self, through algorithms and polishing of persona. The phone resembles a mirror and our capacity for seeing the world beyond the mirror, of hearing voices outside the echo chamber, has severely limited our compassion for one another. Freeman argues that this curation of the individual “I” keeps us from becoming a much more powerful “we” capable of bringing about social change. This pitting of my “I” against your “I”, keeps us fighting among ourselves and not against the powerful and wealthy who benefit from our infighting.

In “You,” the penultimate call-to-kindness, Freeman directs a challenge plainly to You, dear reader, to engage in “one act of resistance in the form of love . . . without restriction.” Freeman echoes the “I” section here, stating that to connect through kindness is a tangible act of resistance against a society that sells us an idea of the “I” who stands on their own.


Dictionary of the Undoing by John Freeman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, November 2019.

Reviewer bio: RS Deeren received his BA from Saginaw Valley State University, his MFA from Columbia College Chicago, and is a PhD candidate at UW- Milwaukee. You can read his creative work at www.rsdeeren.com.

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Take Risks with Adam Grant

April 11, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

Originals by Adam GrantGuest Post by Alicia Wilcox

Adam Grant’s Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World gave me a powerful new outlook on not only my abilities, but my untapped potential. Grant explains how big thinkers are not just the ones with big ideas, but the ones that take action. Reading this has not only changed the way I think, but the way I act. This book has helped me challenge the norm and foster innovative ideas, as well as getting others to believe in those ideas too.

Surprisingly, risk taking can make your career less fragile. Grant dives into the art of taking risks and challenging the status quo, giving a conclusive guide on transparently communicating and ensuring trust from others along the way. He busts the myths that hold us back from success and goes deep into the paradox: the ones who suffer most within a system are the least likely to challenge it. You can have talent and work ethic, but you have to be original for your ideas to win. How do we create original ideas? Grant shares his secrets on how to defeat perfectionism and produce a large volume of ideas to not only be seen by others, but also utilized for the better.

Originals is a five-star read, giving readers a sturdy foundation for how to embrace change and achieve success in a multitude entirely divergent atmospheres.


Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant. Penguin Random House, February 2017.

Reviewer bio: Alicia Wilcox’s work has most recently been published in The Health Journal, The Dewdrop Weekly and is sold in stores across Manhattan.

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Filed Under: Reading Tagged With: Book Review, Book Review - NewPages, Guest Post, Nonfiction, What I'm Reading

Lock-Down Pleasures in Recent Reading

April 10, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

Ruins of Us by Keija ParssinenGuest Post by S.B. Julian

Recently I moved into a new apartment building for people age 55-plus: the generations that grew up with books, not digitalia. Their schooling emphasized reading, which means the building’s shared library is a serendipitous treasure trove.

Why is it that a book you find by chance is often more pleasurable than an equally worthy book you specially ordered? Some delightful chance findings: [Read more…] about Lock-Down Pleasures in Recent Reading

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Sniffing Out the Boogeyman

April 10, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Guest Post by Lily Anna Erb

Carmen Maria Machado creates a dark, dreamlike landscape in her experimental memoir, In The Dream House. Her story of queer domestic abuse, written as a collection of short vignettes, begins as a fairy tale. There’s a monster lurking somewhere, and the desire to sniff out the boogeyman makes you forget you’re even turning pages. Machado’s addition of fairy tale citations adds a semi-lighthearted and humorous touch to an otherwise darker narrative. Machado’s fairy tale monster takes the form of the woman who lives in the “dream house.”

Machado creates a fascinating practice in self-analysis and reader involvement by using all three modes of perspective. She utilizes third person to explain an airy concept, second person to tell the lurid contents of her tale, and first person to speak directly to the reader. The most frequently utilized perspective is the second person, where Machado seems to rip her hand through the spine of the book to touch the reader. Perhaps the most nerve-wracking example of this technique is the section titled “Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure” where the reader is given multiple choices of action which all lead to the same abusive conclusion.

No matter how fascinating a world Machado can craft, it doesn’t save her from unnecessary pedanticism. The form of the book, utilizing “The Dream House as . . .”  before every vignette quickly loses its original charm. The book seems to drag on unnecessarily long. Once the story loses its driving force of conflict, the reader is ready for it to end. However, these small annoyances did not totally hinder my consumption of Machado’s work. In The Dream House is full of minefields that you don’t expect. By the end of the book, the reader cheers on Machado as she recovers from her time in the “dream house.”


In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. Graywolf Press, November 2019.

Reviewer bio: Originally from New York, Lily Anna Erb is a sophomore studying poetry at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.

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Bible studies, Burgess style

April 9, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

Moses by Anthony BurgessGuest Post by Bill Cushing

Retiring in mid-February, I foresaw a sedentary future. However, this virus has taken even that to unexpected heights. With my time in isolation (so to speak; I have a family), I’ve been able to read Moses, a fictional narrative based on the biblical figure’s life by Anthony Burgess.

While most know Burgess for Clockwork Orange, that’s hardly his best. He is the primary reason I pursued an MFA after a 15-year absence from school.

Now I recall why I love (and envy) his writing so much. Moses is a bit closer to two of his earlier works: Napoleon Symphony, where he presents his interpretation of the diminutive conqueror’s life while dividing the book into four sections attempting to replicate the pacing of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, and Man of Nazareth, a look at the life of Jesus as narrated by a Greek merchant returning from business in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion.

Moses strikes out on its own in several ways, beginning with its structure. A narrative in verse. it reminds the reader of the Greek epic poems. It humanizes its characters—even Ramses. Moses himself suffers from a speech impediment. This is not unexpected for readers familiar with Burgess; most of his characters with outward defects tend to be the only complete person: recall the grotesque minister defending Alex in Clockwork Orange or the narrator’s disfigured sister in Earthly Powers.

But, like all things coming from Burgess, there are lessons to derive from this one. Issues such as free will, individual responsibility, and respect for simply stated (not grandiose and intricate) law are chief among those. This may be one of the easiest books from Burgess to read although I’d still recommend having a dictionary handy since the linguistic “tricks” found in his diction are always entertaining.


Moses: a narrative by Anthony Burgess. Dempsey & Squires, 1976.

Reviewer bio: Bill Cushing writes and facilitates a writing group for 9 Bridges. His poetry collection, A Former Life, was released last year by Finishing Line Press.

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A Comprehensive Search for Explanations

April 9, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

The Catholic School by Edoardo AlbinatiGuest Post by Katy Scrogin

Sheltering in place has provided the perfect opportunity to dive into Edoardo Albinati’s The Catholic School, a thorough exploration of the author’s coming of age in a particular Roman neighborhood in the 1970s. More than simple description or reminiscence, the book is propelled by a comprehensive search for explanations—specifically, regarding a gruesome crime committed by a few of the quarter’s well-heeled young inhabitants. The story is itself an unsparing quest to understand the conditions and sentiments and reigning assumptions that made such a thing even conceivable.

This is no straightforward mystery or crime novel, and indeed, readers not fond of philosophical or sociocultural speculation will probably not enjoy what for this reader amounts to delicious intellectual revelry. But if the lengthy and incisive discourses on bourgeois morality and hypocrisy, the nature of violence, the troubling and troubled realities of masculinity, the strange arena that is the family, or religion and politics in Italy, aren’t your bag, all is not lost! The 1200-plus-page behemoth can most certainly be incorporated into that weight-training routine you have time to take up now that we’re all stuck inside.


The Catholic School by Edoardo Albinati. Macmillan, August 2019.

Reviewer bio: Katy Scrogin’s most recent online work is featured at The Book Smuggler’s Den and The Bookends Review. She can also be found at katyscrogin.wordpress.com.

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Exploring Loss with Page Hill Starzinger

April 8, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

Vortex Street by Page Hill StarzingerGuest Post by Shin Yu Pai

In Page Hill Starzinger’s Vortex Street, the poet explores many different kinds of loss, to resist squandering what is given. In her revisions of complicated grief, she takes up the subjects of unborn children, the ending of fertility, and becoming an orphaned adult after the death of parents. The fleeting life cycle of a mayfly which only endures for 24 hours is held against the cognitive decline of an aging father. In this act of ongoing “rentrayage” or remaking, the poet turns towards locating the quiet harbor where grief can be held—through the senescent body, its memories, and the exterior dwelling places that anchor us to the past.


Vortex Street by Page Hill Starzinger. Barrow Street Press, May 2020.

Reviewer bio: Shin Yu Pai is the author of AUX ARCS, Adamantine, Sightings, and Equivalence. In March 2020, Entre Rios Books published Ensō, a 20-year survey of her work across disciplines. For more info, visit www.shinyupai.com.

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Rereading Jane Eyre

April 8, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Guest Post by Eliza Mimski

When I go through troubling times, I often reread certain chapters in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. It’s the part starting in Chapter 27 where Jane knows that she can’t morally stay at Thornfield Hall any longer and that in order to be true to herself she must leave Mr. Rochester. On her sad voyage away from him, she loses her money and is homeless and starving and yet her connection to nature and to her God is at its strongest. She carries on, not knowing that she will soon happen upon her long-lost relatives and will later reconnect with Mr. Rochester.

What Jane, or Charlotte Brontë, does for me here is to remind me that when I’m in the middle of a crisis I need to remember to connect to my spirituality in a big way, and also to remember that no matter how bad the situation seems, the future can bring change and that I won’t stay stuck forever. To place this in the present situation, it is necessary for me to remember that the suffering brought about by the pandemic will end.


Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. October 1847.

Reviewer bio: I live in San Francisco, California, and am doing my best, like the rest of you, to stay healthy during the pandemic. Find my website here.

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C.J. Sansom’s 16th Century Reality

April 7, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

Tombland by CJ SansomGuest Post by M.C. LeBrun 

In C.J. Sansom’s seventh addition to the marvellous Shardlake series, we find ourselves in 1549 and once more at the whims of the Lady Elizabeth, a self-possessed and impassioned fifteen-year-old with little hint of teenage naivety. A missing woman reappears and is then savagely murdered. Her estranged husband, a distantly related Boleyn, stands accused of the crime. Matthew Shardlake is sent to Norfolk to investigate and uncovers intrigue at the highest echelons of elite society. While there, he is captured and caught up in a Kett’s Rebellion, a revolt of the peasant classes against greedy land grabs of the local gentry.

Born with a curvature of the spine and an astute and clear-sighted intellect, Matthew navigates the unsanitary conditions and unjust realities of 16th century England in the years after Henry VIII’s demise, leaving an eleven year old boy on the throne and in the midst of a lion’s den of power players. He is a man of his time but the disability which has marks him as an outsider has also engendered an empathetic awareness of the plight of others. His own critical reckoning and that of those around him, crosses the centuries, offering more relevance to modern thinking while remaining plausibly within the realms of 16th century reality and experience.

The intimacy of Matthew’s asides along with the minutiae of his daily tasks enhances the sense we are shadowing this man through each hour of his life, adding to the immersive experience of the reader into his medieval reality. And what an existence it is: political intrigue, civic unrest, religious discord, intensely unequal economic disparity, ruptured innocence, and war crimes. Add to that Matthew’s own reluctant investigations into gruesome murders, the duplicitous doings of the social elite, and the undue suffering of the poor and powerless and we have a meticulously researched novel of such scope and depth that, by god’s wounds, it is often hard to pull oneself back from it into modern life.


Tombland by C.J. Sansom. Pan MacMillan, October 2018.

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Activities and Insight from James W. Pennebaker

April 7, 2020 Posted by Katy Haas

Secret Life of Pronouns - James PennebakerGuest Post by Colleen M. Farrelly

As a lifelong logophile, I’ve found folks who are acerbic, insipid, and (occasionally) inimitable. However, I’d never thought about the his or hers or theirs aspect of life (or the importance of these words) until reading James Pennebaker’s The Secret Life of Pronouns.

By analyzing the words that knit together what I’d assumed were the important words of a sentence, one can learn a lot about the sentence’s writer or speaker—his/her personality, truthfulness, social status, and even future behavior. Pennebaker even includes links to writing activities used to analyze traits described in the book. According to the bottle project, I’m likely to attend art shows and avoid blow-drying my hair (guilty on both counts).

With a fairly low reading level required for the activities sections and insight from disparate fields like psychology, politics, and law, this book offers something for everyone in the family. Happy reading!


The Secret Life of Pronouns by James Pennebaker. Bloomsbury Press, August 2011.

Reviewer bio: Colleen M. Farrelly is a freelance writer in Palmetto Bay, FL, whose poetry has appeared in many haibun and haiku journals.

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