101 Gothic reads from the 18th century onwards. How many have you read? Disclaimer: This is a list the leans into my expertise (18th and 19th century…
101 Gothic Reads You Might Enjoy
Category Archives: book lovers
101 Gothic Reads You Might Enjoy
A Sublime Video for Bibliophiles
I just discovered this woman’s videos yesterday. What a beautiful,serene life!serene life!
Brightly
If you need help finding a book for a child or teen, Brightly is a site that’s sure to help. Used by librarians and teachers, Brightly offers reviews and lists of books for every sort of reader, e.g. 20 Early Chapter Books for Boys, 14 Best Books for Kindergarten Graduation Gifts, 7 Picture Books that Celebrate Great Teachers, Books for Star Wars Obsessed Kids, and more. It’s easy to search by age or interest. The site publishes new articles regularly. In addition to book posts, Brightly offers articles on parenting with topics including social media and kids, communication and dealing with perfectionism. It’s a terrific resource.
Literature-Map.com
Looking for a new author to read?
Say you like Raymond Chandler, Günther Grass, Tana French or Jane Austen or whomever.
Go to literature-map.com, enter then name of a writer you like and Voila! you’ll see an animated map of writers whose work is like that author. The closer the author’s name is to the one you like, the more people have indicated they like both writers.
So Carol Shields fans also have reported liking Elizabeth Berg, Alice Munro and Anne Lamott most often, but also like writers farther from the center.
Powered by AI, you can add to the data by going to gnooks.com, entering the names of three authors you like and then answering questions about how much you like other authors.
I find I can play with this site for hours.
Fantastic Fiction
I just learned about a phenomenal website for readers who love fiction. It’s Fantastic Fiction and it’s a treasure trove containing an exhaustive amount of content on authors and books of all genres. Genres featured include everything from mysteries and sagas to urban literature and paranormal romance.
You can find new books by looking at books your favorite authors have suggested or by looking at what other users viewed that view one of your favorite books.
Librarians use is extensively when they suggest books.
Fantastic Fiction was started as a hobby and now a full time business for Dave Wand and his small crew.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Silent
Rare book, National Library, Victoria
1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Wednesday when the next photo theme will be announced.
2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ tag.
3. Follow The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements, and subscribe to our newsletter – we’ll highlight great posts. Add Media photos from each month’s most popular challenge.
Just a few wonderful posts:
- Silent (daily post)
- Silent (the snow melts)
- Silent (nomad online)
- Silent (street photography collages)
- Silent (words like honey)
- Silent (jinan daily photo)
- Silent (here and abroad)
- Silent (ruined for life)
- Silent (cee’s photography)
- Silent (lazy haze)
- Silent (my paisley life)
- Silent (jennifer shelby)
- Silent (from hiding to blogging)
- Silent (celebres 3.0)
- Weathered (jinan daily photo)
- Weathered (narrow bamboo gate)
- Weathered (emotion depot)
- Weathered (stenoodie)
- Weathered (wooly muses)
- Weathered (this and that)
- Weathered (thin spiral notebook)
- Weathered (leya)
- Weathered (cee’s photos)
- Weathered (animosbones)
- Weathered (domer mom)
- Weathered (a trivial mind at work)
- Weathered (here and there)
- Weathered (guilty treasures)
- Weathered (mittened hands)
- Weathered (emotional notions)
2018 Reading Challenge
I’ve made up a reading challenge for myself. I have done Goodreads.com‘s challenges where I read a certain number of books per month. This time I’m adding some themes and other specifics to spice things up.
Susan’s 2018 Reading Challenge
January – read a memoir and another book that’ll help me change my outlook (i.e. achieve a resolution)
February – read a 19th century novel and a religious book
March – read a book written by a Russian author
April – read a play by Shakespeare and commentary in a Norton Classic edition
May – read a detective story
June – read a book of historical fiction
July – read a travel book
August – read a humorous book
September – read a book by a Japanese author
October – read something scary
November – read a book a friend has recommended
December – read a children’s book and a story or book with a Christmas theme
The Book of Will
What a fun play! Written by Lauren Gunderson, The Book of Will at the Northlight Theater till December 17th tells the story of how without the effort of his friends, we wouldn’t have an authentic collection of William Shakespeare’s plays. In 1620 after Will had passed on, his friends were fed up with bad Shakespearean plays. Some were bad versions patched up with garbled versions of the plays made from copyists in the audience who tried to take down everything that was said. Some were just plays written by hacks who tried to copy Shakespeare’s style.
The play begins in a pub near The Globe theater where three of Shakespeare’s friends Richard Burbage, John Heminges, Henry Condell, actors from the King’s Men’s troupe and Condell’s daughter Elizabeth bemoan the horrible fakery that passes for Shakespeare. When Burbage dies suddenly they realize the only chance for passing these masterpiece plays down to posterity is to collect and publish a folio. It’s an expensive undertaking that is complicated by the lack of a full set of originals. A few plays are here, another bunch are with a scrivener, most actors only got their part, not the full play so some had to be carefully put together. No respectable printer wanted to touch the project so Heminges and Condell had to settle for a slimy, greedy cheat.
The play is delightful as it weaves memorable passaged of the Bard’s work throughout the story, which is well paced. The characters include Shakespeare’s wife, daughter and mistress, and Heminges’ and Condell’s wives and and so there is some female influence supporting the impossible project. The Northlight’s set and costumes were perfect. I’m tempted to go again.
What’s great about the Northlight is free parking and every seat has a clear view.
Now I want to visit the Newberry Library and see the First Folio in person.
American Writers Museum
Timeline
This year the American Writers Museum in Chicago on Michigan Avenue. It was high time I visited so despite the rain and cold, I took a friend from Milwaukee to explore it.
After showing our tickets, which I bought online and got a 20% discount on, we were directed to start our visit on the right where there is a timeline of American writers.
If you look up on the left and you’ll see a timeline of American history. Under that is the main exhibit showing a chronological series of portraits of significant American writers. When you turn the panel, which has three sides, you’ll find more information and background about each writer. Below is information on a well designed panel about various literary movements or authors. It’s a lot of reading, but its well presented. Also, the curators seem to have made an effort to present authors from all backgrounds. Across from the time line is a wall of squares with author’s quotations. The squares move to reveal an panel with more information or a video.
Parallel to the gallery with the timeline was a photo exhibit on biographies, written by or on authors or celebrities along with their photos. The black and white photos of 50+ years ago were my favorite. There’s something about the crisp gradations and the styles of bygone eras that we just don’t see much anymore.
The next room I saw was the Readers Room which focuses on reading. It highlights different kinds of reading, such as educational, newspapers, magazines and more. There are two interactive screens where you can submit your favorite authors and see the most popular authors or books other visitors have chosen.
Another gallery had a small exhibit on Laura Ingles Wilder with biographical information, maps of where each of her books was set, depiction of her work in other formats and critical responses to her works.
The museum has a table with different typewriters, from the earliest kind to Selectric to a laptop. People were pounding away at the old typewriters while the laptop wasn’t used while I was there.
Quotation, Octavia Butler
Then there was an exhibit on the skills of writing with interactive exhibits on specificity, making prose active and such.
Finally, there was an area dedicated to Chicago writers like Saul Bellow, Ida B. Wells, Mike Royko, Ring Larder, Gwendolyn Brooks, Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser, Peter Finley Dunne and many more. Here you could listen to short recordings of their work and see these turnable banners with their portraits and information on their work.
Each month the museum offers several programs including public readings. The staff was very helpful as we went through the galleries. They’d point out little things like the mural in the children’s room which had squirrels in a tree reading Caldecott award winning books and each squirrel had some element that related to the story it was reading. For example, the squirrel reading Charlotte’s Web, had a wisp of a web hanging over it.
All in all, I give the museum a thumbs up and will be back. I’d say allow an hour to get through the museum. If there’s a program, add more time.
Tickets: Adults $12, Students $8, discounts for children and seniors.
Chicago History Museum, Service Safari
Today I went to the Chicago Historical Museum to do some research for a writing project I’ve started. It’s a historical
Chicago Historical Museum Research center
- What was my goal and was it met? My goal was to get some primary sources on the 1870’s in Chicago to find out about how
- What was good about the service? The librarian was very approachable and helpful. She showed interest in my search and checked on my progress and offered new ideas as I worked.
- What detracted from the experience? I had no complaints.
- With whom did you interact? I spoke with a friendly reference librarian and I suppose an intern who brought the items I needed. You have to show a membership card or give the librarian the entrance ticket ($10) when you arrive.
- Were you confused at any time during the experience? I had to use a microfiche machine, which I hadn’t used since probably high school. The librarian gladly showed me how, but all the different knobs are hard to get straight right off the bat.
- Describe the physical space. The reference desk is near the entrance. In the main room there were several long tables with slips for patrons to fill out to request items. Along one side of the room are books on shelves and the opposite wall has several computers and microfiche machines. Beyond the tables is an area with lots of old maps on tables.
When I went, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of the scope of their collection or what would help me. I want to also try the Chicago Public Library, if non-residents can, and the Newberry Library so I wasn’t sure that I’d be back so I didn’t purchase a membership. Now I think I’ll go back perhaps weekly and hope to take one of their walking tours. So I will get a membership. Going to one of these special libraries is kind of cool, but also a little intimidating at first. You can’t bring in any bags, pens, food or drink. You’re not supposed to bring in cameras, but one woman was snapping photos of documents with a camera. That was pretty obvious since her camera clicked loudly. I guessed she must have had permission.
You can just bring in a pencil and/or a laptop computer.
They’re only open in the afternoon. I did find out quite a bit from their history magazine about servants in that era. I went perused several weeks of the Chicago Times, a now defunct paper on microfiche. Best of all I got to go through Mrs. George Pullman’s diaries and address books of the time.
OmoresOtempora
smkelly8
Xingu, Volume 2 
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