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Liza Achilles - Literary/Autobiographical Author. The Blog for the Discerning Reader.

Literary / Autobiographical Author

❤ Books to make you laugh, hope & ponder ❤


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Incidental Musings

Best Podcasts 2024 & My Quest for Great Female Podcasters

February 26, 2024 by Liza Achilles No Comments
During the last holiday season, I started thinking, for no particular reason, about the podcasts I love. I especially enjoy podcasts that are ongoing, as opposed to podcasts that tell a single story and then end. I love podcasts whose hosts have irrepressible personalities. Who have that special ability to entertain and inform for hours—and years—on end. Whose voices fill...
man playing guitar with baby on couch
Book Previews

Art and Family

July 21, 2023 by Liza Achilles 1 Comment
Claire Dederer points out an unavoidable artist’s problem in her book Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. Talking about this is a bit controversial in today’s social climate, but bear with me. Here’s what she writes: “What the artist or writer or musician needs desperately is time. And what the family needs is time. This conflict is not necessarily solvable. . ....
paintbrushes in a jar
Book Previews

Monsters by Claire Dederer

July 17, 2023 by Liza Achilles 1 Comment
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, a recent nonfiction book by Claire Dederer, is a rumination on the problem of bad people making great art. But I should not write “bad people.” What I mean is “people who have done bad things.” Moreover, Dederer, throughout her book, expands this idea to “people who might or might not have done questionable things, depending...
woman behind bars
Incidental Musings

Women and Freedom

August 8, 2022 by Liza Achilles 2 Comments
“For women are to a considerable extent slaves of this world, knowing nothing of their freedom, having not been taught how to be free.” —Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob What a statement. Bowled me over when I read it. But is it true? The novel it comes from is set in eighteenth-century eastern Europe. Certainly women were not taught...
man weightlifting
Incidental Musings

It’s Guys Like You, Mickey

August 9, 2021 by Liza Achilles No Comments
“It’s guys like you, Mickey!” Just another compliment for “fine” and “pretty” Mickey from the hit 1981 song “Mickey” by Toni Basil, . . . right? Mickey certainly gets a slew of compliments in the song. He’s pretty and fine, and he blows the narrator’s mind. She pleads with him not to break her heart. She wants him to take...
dunking basketball backwards in a gym
Book Previews

I Was So Angry I Was a Girl

June 30, 2021 by Liza Achilles 2 Comments
Here’s a line from the fabulous novel Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson, that I could relate to on a deep level: “When I was a kid, I’d been so angry that I was a girl and couldn’t dunk, . . .” The protagonist loves basketball. Basketball hoops are set at certain heights. As a girl of a certain...
man and woman figure skating
Book Previews

How to Compliment a Woman

January 15, 2021 by Liza Achilles 8 Comments
Last year, I was swiping through a dating site, when I came upon a shocking image. No, it wasn’t an image of that. Dating sites don’t allow such things, silly! It was something equally offensive, though—but for some reason perfectly allowable. Tucked amidst a nice-looking man’s selfies and stats was a cream-hued image with a faux-fancy border around the following...
man looking at camera woman looking away
Book Previews

Men and Women, Good and Bad, and Pleasure

April 3, 2020 by Liza Achilles No Comments
I would like to nominate the following sentence for the award of Best First Sentence of a Work of Fiction That I’ve Read in the Last Year. Brace yourself. This is a great first sentence: “Joey felt that his romance with Daisy might ruin his life, but that didn’t stop him.” Wow—it feels so good to write about something other...
sad woman holding a diary and pen
Book Previews

A Woman With a Diary

December 23, 2019 by Liza Achilles 2 Comments
The short story “The Woman Destroyed” has quite the breathtaking title, don’t you think? I mean, destroyed is a hardcore word. This is not, apparently, a story about a woman annoyed, a woman thwarted, a woman in a bit of pain, or a woman having a bad day. This is about a woman destroyed. The most relevant synonyms for destroyed...
photo characterizing abuse - man's fist in foreground - woman bowing head in background
Book Previews

A Rock and a Hard Place. And a Broken Bone.

August 30, 2019 by Liza Achilles 2 Comments
Everyone knows that abuse is bad. The word itself has a terrible sound to it. Hearing it makes you want to run like hell. Why on earth would anyone put up with it? The trouble is, abuse feels very different from the inside than from the outside. What from an outsider’s perspective looks like abuse often feels like confusion, fear,...
girl in shadows looking darkly away
Book Previews

It’s Not Easy Being Young

June 28, 2019 by Liza Achilles 8 Comments
One thing Anna Burns, author of the prizewinning 2018 novel Milkman, does astonishingly well in the book is to portray the scary, unsettling realities of being young. So many novels glamorize youth. One can find so many confident youngsters in books. They know how to make tough decisions, they know how to make and keep friends, and they know how...
French fashion of the late 1800s, vintage costume, hats, Parisian women, France in the Victorian Age
Book Previews

Womankind From All Angles

January 4, 2019 by Liza Achilles 2 Comments
Just as the illustrator of these Parisian women of the late 1800s wearing fashionable hats did a brilliant job of capturing the nuanced variety of the attire, Émile Zola did a brilliant job of capturing nuances of the nineteenth-century female experience in his novel The Ladies’ Paradise. Moreover, as in his descriptions of large versus small businesses, the themes he...
dancer bending backwards
Book Previews

Bending Backwards for Beauty

September 10, 2018 by Liza Achilles 8 Comments
Hair styling. Nail painting. Clothes and accessories shopping. Laser treatments. Balancing on heels. Cosmetic surgery. Shaving. Tanning. Dermal fillers. Walking up stairs in a long skirt without tripping. Dieting. Make-up application. Botox. Walking down stairs in a short skirt without flashing anyone. The list of things people do for beauty goes on and on. In the book Perfect Me, Heather...
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Hi! I’m Liza

selfie of Liza Achilles literary and autobiographical author writer blogger

About this blog

THE BLOG FOR THE DISCERNING READER: This blog will feed your mind and soul, plus the soles of your feet, if you're ticklish there. Read previews of intellectually and artistically great books, as well as insights on living life well, always with sprinkles of humor.

Categories of posts

  • Author Interviews (4)
  • Book Previews (334)
  • Guest Posts (5)
  • Incidental Musings (156)
  • News & Events (66)
  • Tales (78)

Featured books


candlestick with lit candle on round table with books in living roomNote that the link for the most recently added book(s) will not work until I have published the corresponding blog post.

Shakespeare’s Sisters Ramie Targoff
Unshrunk Laura Delano
The Vegetarian Han Kang
Viable Chloe Yelena Miller
Animal Liberation Now Peter Singer
A Little Life Hanya Yanagihara
Ghost Pains Jessi Jezewska Stevens
Hope for Cynics Jamil Zaki
Midnight in Chernobyl Adam Higginbotham
Cork Dork Bianca Bosker
The Scent of Bright Light Jean K. Dudek
Rejection Tony Tulathimutte
Intermezzo Sally Rooney
Do I Know You? Sadie Dingfelder
James Percival Everett
There Is No Ethan Anna Akbari
The Other Significant Others Rhaina Cohen
Slow Productivity Cal Newport
Blue Ruin Hari Kunzru
Get the Picture Bianca Bosker
Lawn Boy Jonathan Evison
Congratulations, The Best Is Over! R. Eric Thomas
Kairos Jenny Erpenbeck
Exhibit R.O. Kwon
All Fours Miranda July
The Year of Living Constitutionally A.J. Jacobs
Ghosted Jana Eisenstein
Disease Of Kings Anders Carlson-Wee
Why We’re Polarized Ezra Klein
Molly Blake Butler
The Big Bang of Numbers Manil Suri
Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow Steve Almond
Doppelganger Naomi Klein
King Jonathan Eig
The Rachel Incident Caroline O’Donoghue
The End of Loneliness Benedict Wells
Poverty, by America Matthew Desmond
The Trees Percival Everett
The Great Experiment Yascha Mounk
Study for Obedience Sarah Bernstein
Some People Need Killing Patricia Evangelista
The Words That Remain Stênio Gardel
Pageboy Elliot Page
Post-Traumatic Chantal V. Johnson
Stuart: A Life Backwards Alexander Masters
The Girls / The Guest Emma Cline
Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs Kerry Howley
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Gogol
I’m Glad My Mom Died Jennette McCurdy
Unlearn Your Pain Howard Schubiner with Michael Betzold
The Way Out Alan Gordon with Alon Ziv
The Best Minds Jonathan Rosen
Monsters Claire Dederer
Spare Prince Harry
As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
Rebuilt Michael Chorost
Losing Music John Cotter
Kokoro Natsume Sōseki
Party Going / Living / Loving Henry Green
Chatter Ethan Kross
Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
Stay True Hua Hsu
The Invisible Kingdom Meghan O’Rourke
How to Be Perfect Michael Schur
Orfeo Richard Powers
Unwinding Anxiety Judson Brewer
The Confidence Men Margalit Fox
Liberation Day George Saunders
Pandora’s Jar Natalie Haynes
Night of the Living Rez Morgan Talty
The Journalist and the Murderer Janet Malcolm
Mislaid Nell Zink
Exercised Daniel E. Lieberman
Lapvona Ottessa Moshfegh
Empire of Pain Patrick Radden Keefe
Furious Hours Casey Cep
First Person Singular Haruki Murakami
Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro
Dead Souls Sam Riviere
The Pale King David Foster Wallace
Lightning Flowers Katherine E. Standefer
Beautiful World, Where Are You / Normal People / Conversations With Friends Sally Rooney
Swan Dive Georgina Pazcoguin
A Passage North Anuk Arudpragasam
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Projections Karl Deisseroth
The Indian Lawyer James Welch
Atomic Habits James Clear
The History of Philosophy A. C. Grayling
Dusk, Night, Dawn Anne Lamott
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
Change Damon Centola
Homeland Elegies Ayad Akhtar
Becoming Attached Robert Karen
Piranesi Susanna Clarke
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Solitary Albert Woodfox
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

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From the book tour

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  • Liza Achilles on The Vegetarian by Han Kang: Analysis of the English Translation
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Best. Modern. Books.

Intellectually great nonfiction. Artistically great fiction and poetry. Get the inside scoop on the best 21st-century books, every Monday!
 
Your free gift: 20 Best Books in the Last 10 Years