Emily Dickinson, in particular, comes across with such a delicacy and radiance that we begin to understand and sympathise with the odd recluse whose great love lasts a lifetime, and whose poetic work has not only been the beginnings of the modernist movement in poetry, but also an ongoing inspiration.
A review of Million Dollar Red By Gleah Powers
Million Dollar Red provides great insight into the point of view of a child who survives childhood traumas to finally make a sustainable life for herself. It would be a great book to be read in community work-focused classrooms for those who seek to be trauma-informed as they make a difference with today’s youth.
A review of The Wondrous Apothecary by Mary E Martin
In addition to writing a solid storyline for her Trilogy of Remembrance, she also demonstrates a rather thorough background in the visual arts and gracefully weaves that important historical stance into her story in a most mature and sophisticated manner. These are novels that will please a broad audience – those who love romance novels and those who want to explore the universal discussion of what is art at this particular time in history.
A review of Girls Like Us by Elizabeth Hazen
So many of these poems are littered with broken hearts and relationships gone sour, feelings of foreboding and loneliness and vulnerability. The second reference to “girls like us” comes in “Diagnosis III,” which highlights the incipient violence lurking everywhere. It begins: “Girls like you, he spat, / his breath laden with smoke / and Svedka….” It ends: “Girls like / you, he repeated, leaving me / a blank to fill.”
A review of Ghosts of the Shadow Market by Cassandra Clare
I would highly, highly encourage you to read the previous books in the Shadowhunter Chronicles. Ghosts of Shadow Market had me in hysterics, tears and laughter all at once. I found it to be absolute perfection. For this book, and for all of the other Shadowhunter novels, I think the best suited age group would be 14+. I believe the time you read certain books or series influences your opinion and I delved into the fantasy world of Shadowhunters, demons and Downworlders at perhaps the perfect time.
An interview with Jerry Yudelson
Jerry Yudelson, author of The Godfather of Green: An Eco-Spiritual Memoir, released on Earth Day 2020 by Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, talks about the way his book combines environmental work and spiritual discovery, and why he thinks that the climate crisis should be tackled the same way as earlier social and environmental crises.
A review of Unlike the Heart by Nicola Redhouse
Redhouse is an exceptional science writer, and her research is extensive, making connections, incorporating anecdotes both personal and as part of her research, so that the overall effect is engaging, open-minded, informative and powerful. The hybrid effect allows for multiple perspectives that remain open-ended rather than didactic.
A review of Ghosts of the Shadow Market by Cassandra Clare
Themes I found particularly engaging were the harsh and committed life of the Silent Brothers – mysterious, powerful archivists and medics of the Nephilim and how Brother Zachariah’s past life had influenced his experience as a Silent Brother. Frequently, messages of love are communicated beautifully throughout all of Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter Chronicles, I found that this particular perspective brought a meaningful layer of depth to these concepts and notions.
An interview with Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Ashley Kalagian Blunt is the author of My Name Is Revenge, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Woollahra Digital Literary Award and was a finalist in the 2018 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award. In this in-depth Q&A, Ashley talks about her new book My Name is Revenge, about writing creative non-fiction, trying to trace her family history against a backdrop of genocide, and lots more.
A Review of All My People Are Elegies by Sean Thomas Dougherty
The writer ranges in subjects from friends long-dead to the pleasure of drinking tea, watching a sunset, or smelling your child’s hair. As Dougherty touches on these many subjects and themes, one is taken in by the compassion in his approach.