I’ve decided for the rest of the year (and into 2024) to reread novels that I first wrote reviews for when I started the blog in 2011 and other books I read in my 20s and 30s. I want to rediscover why I read and start a new foundation for my reading life. To connect...
Best Book Ever Podcast 149
by MHill | Jun 26, 2023 | Best Book Ever Podcast, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
I was invited back to one of my favorite book podcasts, The Best Book Ever Podcast, hosted by Julie Strauss. This was my third appearance on the podcast and we discussed one of my all-time favorite novels, The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. Faber's...
Rereading The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
by MHill | Jun 20, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Marion's All-Time Favorite Novels, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"The rhetoric of a sermon was one thing; his wife's grim reality was another. Civilizations did not vanish smoothly and easefully; empires did not set like suns: empires collapsed in chaos and violence. Real people got pushed around, beaten up, robbed, made destitute....
The Way of Edan by Phillip Chase
by MHill | Jun 14, 2023 | Book Reviews, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Booktube has been around for some time and it has become a place where book lovers have gathered to watch videos about books. I have ventured into the Booktube world over the past couple of months and one of my favorite BookTubers is Professor and Author Philip...
Thinking of Jenny One Year Later…….
by MHill | May 29, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Reading Envy/Jenny Colvin, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
I found out one year ago this week that Furman University Librarian and Podcaster Jenny Colvin passed away at age 43. I wrote a post last year when it happened. It was a complete shock because we had corresponded a week before she passed away about recording my...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 127: Victory City by Salman Rushdie
by MHill | May 16, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
“The city had grown. It was by no means certain that the people would choose sophistication over barbarianism. The party line regarding members of other faiths—we are good, they are bad—had a certain infectious clarity. So did the idea that dissent was unpatriotic....
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 126: Moonlight & Vines by Charles de Lint
by MHill | May 6, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Charles De Lint, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"Jilly's always saying that magic's never what you expect to be, but it's often what you need. I think she's right. And it doesn't matter if the experience comes from outside or inside. Where it comes from isn't important at all. What's important is that it does...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 22: The Little Heidelberg by Isabel Allende
by MHill | May 4, 2023 | Marion's All-Time Favorite Short Stories, Marion's Favorites, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
"The Little Heidelberg is a tavern a certain distance from the capital and located on a hill surrounded by banana groves; there, besides good music and invigorating air, they offer a unique aphrodisiac stew made heady with a combination of spices, too heavy for the...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 125: The Language of the Night by Ursula K. Le Guin
by MHill | May 1, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Nonfiction, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Writing, Writing and Publishing Resources
"All Art is entertainment. That's so clear it's fatuous to repeat it. Art and Entertainment are the same thing, in that the more deeply and genuinely entertaining a work is, the better art it is. To imply that Art is something heavy and solemn and dull, and...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 21: River People by Yamile Saied Mendez
by MHill | Apr 3, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
"Malena had skills that no one could explain, not even her. When they were alive, her parents thought that her ability to speak to ghosts meant she was a bridge between this world and that of spirits, between their ancestral home in Ireland and the new one in...