Tag: historical
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The Red Palace by June Hur
I first heard about The Red Palace from the author, June Hur, herself. I stumbled across her Instagram reels recapping her various historical fiction novels, and when I read “a dark romantic mystery about a palace nurse and a royal investigator” I knew it was a must-read. The novel takes place during the Joseon dynasty…
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Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Pachinko is one of those novels that I felt I should have read a while ago. It had been recommended to me so many times, by so many different friends I was curious how I would finally react once I read it. It’s a meaty book that made it perfect for my 2022 holiday break,…
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Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee
A perfect blend of memoir, non-fiction, epistolary, and poetry, Two Trees Make a Forest was not a read I wanted to rush. In it, Jessica J. Lee recounts some of her family histories as she hikes through Taiwan, confronting secrets about her Mom, Gong, and Po she’s learned from translations of her Gong’s own memoirs.…
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Lattes with Ladies: Jessica Needham!
In this edition of Lattes with Ladies we are celebrating Pride with the effervescent Jessica Needham! Jess shares her thoughts on queer books versus queering books and her fascinating research into queer media studies.
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Lattes with Ladies: Elizabeth Scott!
This is a long and lovely interview I did with the hilarious and indomitable Elizabeth Scott back in January when meeting up in a cafe was no big deal at all. All of the references to what she had been reading and how many books she read thus far were from when the year had…
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No Place Strange by Diana Fitzgerald Bryden
I seem to have made it a habit of picking books that are difficult to write about even though I know that I will spend more time going back and forth about what I can and can’t say than actually sitting down and trying to write a review. First, it was student suicide, now it…
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No-No Boy by John Okada
I picked up John Okada’s No-No Boy in the Alcatraz Island gift shop when I was visiting San Francisco. It was part of a display about the time period that Alcatraz prison existed in, and when I found out that Okada’s novel is considered the first Asian-American novel I knew it was going to be my choice…
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The Witches of New York by Ami McKay
I got Ami McKay’s latest book, The Witches of New York, in a swag bag from a special sale at Joe Fresh on Queen St. This is a rare book for this blog – one that I didn’t choose for myself nor was it recommended to me by a close friend. By coincidence, it also turned…
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There’s just something about Bathsheba – a feminist icon for today
I first read Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd about two years ago and loved it, so when I saw the title appear on Netflix I knew I would have to write about it! Bathsheba, Hardy’s protagonist has been one of my favourite feminist icons in literature, and with the Women’s March on Washington just last…
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Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a critically acclaimed new novel from Madeleine Thien. Winner of the Giller Prize and Governor General’s Award as well as shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medal, it is effectively the book of 2016. I can’t believe I actually read it before…
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A Brief History of Seven Killings by James Marlon
Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings opens with a Jamaican proverb: “If it no go so, it go near so.” As a fictional account of very real events, it’s hard to think of a more fitting phrase. I’d been meaning to read A Brief History for many months. A year, in fact, as a…
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The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks
I first heard about James Rebanks through his Twitter account @herdyshepherd1 which features beautiful photos of his flock and brought the rural Lake District of England into my daily life. The Shepherd’s Life is Rebanks’ first novel, a memoir told in seasons, capturing the traditional farming lifestyle he was born and raised into. His story and sense…