Sara Donati's Blog, page 12

audiobooks & too much information (with video!)

R-Less Edith Wharton

I’ve been trying to concentrate on writing so I haven’t been posting very often. But something has been on my mindfor a while and I thought this would be the best way to resolve it — in my head, at least.

If you have read this weblog for any length of time you’re most likely aware that I was a professor of linguistics for twelve years before I started writing full time. Linguistics is a huge field — everything from the neurology of speech production to reconstruction of a...

Manhattan in the 1880s: A very big map

Clicking on themap to the left will download a very large jpg of the original: 4,798 x 12,960 pixels or 28.9 MB. I am posting it for those ocd types (like me) who want a full sized, detailed map of the area relevant toThe Gilded Hour.

Note that there is a legend, as well as notes in various spots. If you do download it, you may find it easiest to look at in a browser window (most browsers will allow you to open an image file) at full size. There are both real or historical and fictional locat...

Goodreads Best Historical Fiction

If you took the time to go over to Goodreads and vote forThe Gilded Hour in the historical fiction category, many thanks. Looks like we made it through to the semifinals. It strikes me as a little odd that all the nominated novels got through to the semifinals, but what do I know?

If you have a few minutes and are willing to pop over there again to vote, maybeThe Gilded Hour can make it to the finals.

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Newspapers & Racism in the 1880s

It won’t come as a surprise that there was blatant racialdiscrimination in the 1880s, but once in a whileI am still taken abackby things I come across in the newspapers of the times.

In this case (click for a larger image) on 23 December 1883, theNew York Times reports (page 3) that a woman is seeking a divorce because she cameacross evidence that her husband of a short while is part African American (that is, a mulatto). She first claims she had never heard of such a thing, and then claims t...

The Typewriter Girl: review

This isAlison Atlee’s first novel, a historical. And a romance. It came out in 2013 but just recently worked its way to the top of my tbr pile. The cover description:

ALL BETSEY DOBSON HAS EVER ASKED IS THE CHANCE TO BE VIEWED ON HER OWN MERITS, BUT IN A MAN’S WORLD, THAT IS THE UNFORGIVABLE SIN

When Betsey disembarks from the London train in the seaside resort of Idensea, all she owns is a small valise and a canary in a cage. After attempting to forge a letter of reference she knew would b...

wise guys: words on writing and writers

I used to have my collection of writing quotes on the right sidebar. They rotated, which jolted the page, which some people found irritating. So I took them off. But I still add to them now and then (I added one today, as a matter of fact) and I decided to put them here all at once. Do you have a favorite among these? Do any of them strike you as off? If you have a favorite that isn’t here, please put it in the comments.

…Yet readers still want to wonder what happened next, and unless you mak...

Goodreads Awards Nomination for Gilded Hour

Here’s a bit of an email I got from

Goodreads

today:

Dear Sara,

Are you sitting down? Good: Your book has been nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award!

The Goodreads Choice Awards are the only major book awards decided by readers. We poured over statistics from the millions of books added, rated, and reviewed on Goodreads in 2015 to select 15 nominees in 20 different categories ranging from Romance to Science Fiction to Mystery & Thriller.

The Opening Round kicks off today, and there are two m...

Talking Heads: Poll & Giveaway

I borrowed this great graphic from a South African public festival advertisement.

For years now I’ve been wondering what to do about this weblog, which I started in 2001. There are lots of weblogs out there that are busier than this one — I have had longer dry spells — but as of right now there are 1,214 posts and7,978 total comments.

I know those numbers are off, because somewhere along the line various posts were mysteriouslydeleted, or, more oddly still, conflated. For example: I remember...

Realities: Manhattan 1880s

There were indeed rich women who loved cats so much that they made hats out of them. Kate Fearing wore this cat-hat (I assume it came out of a taxidermist’s shop) to the Vanderbilt costumeball in March 1883.

Kate Fearing and Puss

Poverty was deep and pervasive and heartbreaking.*

Prostitution was another fact of life. It was illegal, but tolerated to the degree that women told the census taker what they did for a living.

101 Forsyth Street. 1880 Census for Mary Brown, Keeper of a House of Il...

Novels I Re-read. And Will Again.

I was so dissatisfied with GoodReads and the way their lists work, I decided to do the list on my own. And once I started this, I had to finish. OCD, and all that. I should have spent this hour writing, but hey.

So this is a long list of novels I have read more than once and probably will read again. Even multiple times. It’s a long list, but I’m sure I’ve missed dozens. As I remember them, I’ll add them. You will note that my tastes are broad and eclectic. Also, I haven’t included anything b...