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Of Words and Dogs and Little Fishes*

I feel so blessed that I can “work” from home as a book reviewer, essayist and occasionally as a literary editor, and to comfortably say that I read for a living. It’s like living the dream (well, until the bills come in, but that’s neither here nor there). But I […]

LitStack Review: Bodies of Water by T. Greenwood

Bodies of Water T. Greenwood Kensington Books Publication Date: September 24, 2013 ISBN 978-0-7582-5093-3 In an interview with the San Diego Reader, author Tammy Greenwood talked about getting caught by Hurricane Irene while visiting her family in Massachusetts in August 2011. “We were totally stranded. I couldn’t drive through the […]

Birthdays

On this day, June 18, in 1949, Chris Van Allsburg was born in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. Author and illustrator of 21 books thus far (and his artwork has been featured on a handful of other author’s works, as well), he is perhaps best known for the children’s books Jumanji and The Polar Express, both of which won Caldecott Medals (the highest US award for illustration in children’s literature), and both of which were adapted into major motion pictures. He was actually schooled as a sculptor; it was his wife who suggested that his sketches for his sculptures would be good book illustrations – the rest is history. Today he turns 72.

Birthdays

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.