Court of Fives Kate Elliott Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Release Date: August 18, 2015 ISBN 978-0-316-36419-5 It’s wonderful how author Kate Elliott has been able to make Jessamy, the heroine of her YA novel, Court of Fives, so unique a literary character, and yet so recognizable in relation […]
The Absent Woman Marlene Lee Holland House Books First Edition: April 20, 2013 ISBN 978-1-909374-40-9 If there’s one demographic that is under-represented in fictional female leads, it’s middle-aged women with school-aged children. Add in to that a woman who does not have custody of the children in the demise of […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.