Remember Mandy Shunnarah, who wrote a guest post for this blog last week? (In case you missed it, here’s her post about how one line in a novel changed her life: This Novel Got Me My Dream Job.) Well, I also wrote a guest post for her blog. And it’s posted today. (We’re awesome mutually sharing friends like that!) The...
The following is a guest post by Mandy Shunnarah, a writer, editor, and blogger who, like me, organizes and hosts Silent Book Club events and writes for the Silent Book Club blog. Oftentimes the quotes I end up underlining in books are the ones the author might least expect. Not throwaway lines exactly, but quotes that in the grand scheme...
Dear Blog Readers, Lovers of the Written Word, and Everyone Who Has Something to Say: As of January 2021, I am offering writing, editing, and coaching services! Do you have a book in you? Do you have a story, article, essay, report, or website in you? Is there another piece of writing that you’d like to bring into the world?...
Hi, Blog Readers! As always, thanks for reading my little blog posts. Thanks, also, for reading those of my blog posts that aren’t so little. Much appreciated. I’m feeling the need for a break, so I’ll be in absentia next week. (Patrons will continue to hear from me as usual.) It will be a little holiday break for me. And...
Like many people this year, I am having to cut back on spending. This means buying fewer books and relying more on my public library. But my library isn’t the same comfortable place it used to be. . . . So begins my most recent article on the Silent Book Club blog. Read the rest of the article! Is your...
Booklovers everywhere: we have a serious problem. Fortunately, we also have a serious solution. Let’s delve into the complex process of getting excellent books into the hands of the eager readers of your local community, including you. We booklovers have multiple options for buying books. The choice between Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores, and other options is fraught with...
If you’re a book lover like me, you’re probably constantly on the hunt for new books to read. But you don’t want to read just any book. You’re wondering which books out there—and there are a lot of them to choose from!—are getting a lot of buzz, or are highly acclaimed, or are pertinent to your interests. You may also...
Hi, friends. How are you holding up? Someone dear to me sent me the following image and gave me permission to share it. (I’d love to give attribution if I could learn where it originated. So if you created this, send me a message, and I’ll give proper attribution.) So here are some great daily quarantine questions for all of...
Are any of you book lovers struggling, as I am, to read the books on your bedside table right now? I’m drawn to the news, to the big topics of the day. I was commiserating with a friend about this, and she spontaneously thought up a list of readings, ranging from centuries ago to the present day, having to do...
Yep, tomorrow is the first day of Black History Month, 2020! And I’d like to kick off the celebration a day early with a preview of one of the most amazing and powerful books I’ve ever read. I know, I know. I say that about (almost!) every book I preview on this blog. But this one’s really special. Extraordinary. Never...
Performance Art, Life as Performance I want to tell you about one of the most unique and powerful books I have ever read. Paradoxically, its uniqueness and power arise not from something exotic, but from what’s literally everywhere, all around us. A lot of books lift you out of your ordinary, blah life and drop you into a fantastical or...
Waaaaay back on September 9, 2019, two days before something fell on my head, I wrote a post called How I Learned to Write (Part 1: Was It in College?). At the end of it, I promised to write more on the topic next time. This didn’t happen—actually for various reasons; it wasn’t just due to the concussion. It was...
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Books previewed
Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo
Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson
Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh
The Cooking Gene Michael W. Twitty
The First Bad Man Miranda July
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson
Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh
The Cooking Gene Michael W. Twitty
The First Bad Man Miranda July
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
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