Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin–Again!

The trees and grass were still green as summer, but the air and sky had thinned indefinably, as they did in autumn, and the first few leaves, dropped from what trees you could never tell, were drifting downwards in the sunlit air. –Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin I studied classics at a large university, spent hours […]

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Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin & Fairport Convention

During a 36-mile bike ride on the T-Bone Trail in Iowa, my husband and I filled an hour talking idly about books.  I recommended  Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, a college novel about an English major’s four years at an idyllic small college in Minnesota.  (I blogged about this a few days ago here.)  My husband […]

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Tam Lin by Pamela Dean

One of my favorite books is Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, a college novel laced with fantasy, romance, and dialogue about literature.  I reread this all-ages classic every year as a kind of inspirational back-to-school book that bolsters me (reluctantly, occasionally) to teach Latin through adult ed. The witty, intellectual heroine, Janet, is an enthusiastic reader […]

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Up North, Target, & Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin

The blues and greens are already fading as summer turns into fall.  On our way to the woods we had to stop at Target and buy a sweatshirt because the temperature plummeted a good ten degrees Up North.  My short-sleeved shirt wasn’t enough to hold off the cold.   By the way, we discovered Target […]

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A Coven of Desperate Readers: Emily Books, Tin House Book Club in a Box, & Online Book Covens

The book discussion climate in your household or extended family may be far from ideal:  she will read nothing published later than Wuthering Heights, he will read nothing before Gary Shteyngart, the cousin in rehab will read only Barbara Pym and those two books by Alice Thomas Ellis the library doesn’t have, and the nieces […]

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Another Book Giveaway (in Return for Stamps)!

My last giveaway turns out NOT TO BE MY LAST GIVEAWAY AFTER ALL!  If anyone would like my copy of Hilary Thayer Hamann’s Anthropology of an American Girl, I will send it to you in return for stamps.  It’s 606 pages, so it might cost $3-$4 media mail.  But if you can spare the stamps, […]

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What’s with the Y.A. Thing & What We Should Read Instead

What is with the Y.A. trend?  What’s with the midnight book-buying parties?  And why have we adults fallen prey to the new fallacy that we should read Y.A. books, “attracted by well-written, fast-paced and engaging stories that span the gamut of genres and subjects…,” as Susan Carpenter wrote in March in the L.A. Times.  Laura […]

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Giller Prize & Gossip: What I’m Reading and the Rock and Roll Quiz

Yesterday the finalists for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in Canada were announced. Will Ferguson’s 419 (not available in the U.S.) Alix Ohlin’s Inside (available in the U.S.) Nancy Richler’s The Imposter Bride (available in the U.S. Jan. 29, 2013) Kim Thuy’s Ru (not available in the U.S.) Russell Wangersky’s Whirl Away (not available in the […]

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Elizabeth Taylor’s Complete Short Stories

Over the years, I have enjoyed Elizabeth Taylor’s well-crafted, if uneven, novels about the problems of middle- and upper-class women in love and family relationships. So although I am not a big fan of short stories, I decided to read Taylor’s Complete Short Stories, and ,amazingly, have found them richer and more graceful than her novels. […]

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Reading “Tier-Two” Novels & Kim Barnes’ In the Kingdom of Men

I try to read one contemporary novel a week, but often curl up with “old” books instead:  classics, out-or-print science fiction, or a middlebrow novel by Nancy Hale.  And then I don’t look up for days and forget about the new books piled on my floor. This summer, however, I’ve tackled several new books and […]

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