Lizzie Skurnick's Blog, page 7
December 1, 2009
"Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife" by Francine Prose
Of the many hats worn by icon Anne Frank—ingénue, prophet, precocious innocent, even an actual lampshade, in one ill-advised incarnation—the most obvious is the least examined: writer. But in Anne Frank, author and lifetime fan Francine Prose has done the nearly impossible to one of the world's most revered figures and her relentlessly pored-over text. She's taken Anne off the pedestal where our near-religious cultural fervor has placed her, and settled her firmly in what she views as a far...
"Notes From No Man's Land," by Eula Biss
Whither America? It's a question as rudely trampled as Fourth of July confetti and as old as the country itself, drawing decades of ruminative expatriates, patriots, nativists and activists to its winking allure like a quarter stuck to the sidewalk. But while many have answered, few have simply stopped to listen.
October 26, 2009
New Orleans' Garden District Book Shop
Date: Thursday, November 12
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Place: Garden District Book Shop
Location: 2727 Prytania Street, New Orleans, LA
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Updates of no consequence (TABITHA IN BLACKFACE!?!)
Even in the life of a writer and book reviewer, one finds one periodically likes what one reads or likes what one writes. This happened two–two!–times this week. The first excerpt is a review of something I enjoyed reading, Michelle Huneven's absolutely laying-waste-to-the-land-and/or-competition Blame, which I reviewed for NPR.
When a character accidentally kills a mother and daughter within the first 20 pages of a novel, a reader might expect the author to dedicate the remaining pages to...
October 22, 2009
Have achieved hashtag status; all else is grass #shelfdiscovery
I have always wanted a bunch of people on tap to do my job so I could lie down but have never figured out exactly how to swing it. Luckily for me, the delightful blog Booking Mama has stepped in with a Shelf Discovery challenge that will yield pinch hitters if not a permanent staff in the important work of rediscovering and celebrating neglected YA classics. Here are, briefly, the rules:
The Shelf Discovery Challenge will run for six months (November 1, 2009 – April 30, 2010). To join me in...
September 30, 2009
And….a banned books event in Brooklyn
Click for Thursday's event! That doesn't quite scan to Partridge in a Pear Tree, but close enough. In any case! My world tour — i.e., Tri-state, mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and midday tour — now concludes where it all began: Word Books in Brooklyn, just two blocks from the breakfast spot where Jezebel EIC Anna Holmes and I decided to do Fine Lines, and where we wandered over in search of some vintage titles to start with. (There actually weren't any. But still!)
I will soon put up a gallery of all ...
WORD Books Banned Books Party
Date: Thursday, October 1
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: Word Books
Location: 126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn, NY 11222
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September 24, 2009
Chicago's Book Cellar
Date: Sunday, September 27th
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: The Book Cellar
Location: 4736 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL 60625-2089
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