One of the things I miss the most about editing is the opportunity to share the exciting things I’ve read. When you edit a fiction magazine, you can point out the great new authors, or the marvelous short story by a master of the form. I lost that platform when I gave up editing to concentrate on my writing.
Of course, the difference here is that I’m not limited to short fiction or fiction at all. What you’ll find under each month’s heading are the stories, articles, essays, novels and non-fiction books that impressed me in the preceding four weeks. I’ll try to provide links whenever possible.
What you won’t find here will be critical commentary or negative reviews. There are too many good things to read in this world; I generally don’t finish something I don’t enjoy.
So anything I list here, with or without commentary, is something I enjoyed. I hope you will too.
Even more Spanish academic article reading this month, some of which were fascinating, particularly one on proposed changes in the methodology of anthropology. But never fear, I’m not going to recommend any of it. I also (for my sins) had to read The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov for the 100th time. God, I loathe that […]
Continue ReadingI finished a book by an author I love at the start of the month, then spent two weeks trying to decide if I want to recommend it. The book doesn’t really work. She left out depth entirely, so all we had were these great characters (related to other great characters of hers). She had […]
Continue ReadingJuly was a good month for reading, only I can’t share much of what I read. I read wonderful manuscripts in my Romance Spies in-person class. The class was an advanced class, so all the writers were good. They were just trying a subgenre that some of them were unfamiliar with. I read incredible stories, […]
Continue ReadingJune was a weird month. As I blogged about earlier in the week, I got so sick I couldn’t read. When I came back to reading, I read a few novels that were good, but not compelling. Certainly not worth recommending. One I had been reading as I got sick and thought maybe the problem […]
Continue ReadingI got a lot of reading done in April, but never had time to update this post. That’s why it’s late. I was trying hurriedly to finish the next Fey novel, and everything else seemed to get thrown overboard. Much of what I read I liked, which is a nice change of pace from earlier […]
Continue ReadingI started out reading great guns at the beginning of March and then…I have no idea. Life, maybe? The time change did zing me more than I expected, and I had to study for midterms, but those were gone by mid-month and my reading declined in the second half of the month. So I have […]
Continue ReadingFebruary got away from me. I was working on a deadline and dealing with several other things. Plus a nightmare course at school that I eventually dropped. (The course was cursed; the original prof had left the university suddenly, so they substituted a woman whose Spanish was as good as mine [which is to say, […]
Continue ReadingWell, I learned something about myself this month. I am not ready to face 2020 in any realistic way. I picked up, as I always do, The Best American Essays, and dove in. This year’s came from 2020, even though the volume is marked 2021. (That’s standard.) And…I just…couldn’t. I had to put the book […]
Continue ReadingTotally insane month with a lot of legal reading—maybe 500 pages—which I find fascinating, but you won’t. I added Grisham’s latest to that, but it’s emotionally cold and didn’t have much of an impact on me. Okay, yes, all of Grisham is emotionally cold, but usually that suits the story. It didn’t here. I enjoyed […]
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I love the little image above this post. It’s a perfect description of the Holiday Spectacular. Yes, we’re doing it again. This year, we will send you or a friend or both of you or all of you 38 stories between American Thanksgiving (4th Thursday of November) to New Year’s Day. You will receive one […]
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