Now that my husband and I are the chief facilitators of our kid’s remote kindergarten experience, in addition to both working from home at our full time jobs, I find weekday lunches to be a pretty exhausted time for me. Thus, I’ve instituted a lunchtime storytime practice, where some professional reads my kid picture books…
Virtual Book Clubs for Readers Who Want to Connect
Whether you call it social distancing, shelter in place, or hashtag Stay Home, your book club is probably not meeting at the coffee shop this month. There are, however, a number of virtual book club options, some well-established already and some cropping up now to meet the recent demand of people who wish to discuss…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Cities and Guises
Charlee Jacob’s novella “Up, Out of Cities that Blow Hot and Cold” – which debuted in the 2000 collection of the same name before being reissued as a standalone book – is a story that takes the concept of urban decay literally. All around the world, cities are being hit by disasters: the Eiffel Tower…
Weary of Being a Woman: Dark Agnes — from Pulp to Comics
Conan the Barbarian is the best-known of the characters created by Robert E. Howard, but he is far from the only one. Prior to his early death in 1936, Howard conceived an entire pantheon of pulp heroes including the likes of Solomon Kane, Kull of Atlantis and Bran Mak Morn, many of whom had afterlives…
Random House Book Club Is Extremely Hip
If you want to drink wine and chat with smart enthusiastic people about a buzzy book in an extremely cool lounge, the publisher Random House has your back. Continuing their pattern of innovative New York City event planning after their fun Book Fair for Grownups last fall, Penguin Random House launched a swanky new monthly…
Portrait of an Artist: Frida Kahlo Is Perfect for Art Lovers Young and Old
Frida Kahlo is one of the most recognisable artists who ever lived. While her likeness has been highly commodified in recent years, the potency of her art and her fanbase is larger than ever — and constantly increasing. Her home, her Blue House, has now become a regular stop for art lovers in Mexico City,…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Dread in the Beast
Bodily fluids flow freely through horror fiction. Whether the substance in question is sucked out by vampires or splattered across walls by serial killers, there is a good chance that a novel of the genre will contain its share of blood, brains and viscera. In the more erotic corners of horror literature, readers are apt…
One Order of Murder Mystery, Hold the Regressive Politics, Please
After seeing Knives Out, I, for one, felt a new resurgence of my love for murder mysteries. There are many great murder mysteries of course, but one of the reasons Knives Out felt so rejuvenating is that it sidestepped a lot of the conservative political assumptions of the genre. Excitingly, however, there is a rich…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Haunter or Soma
Charlee Jacob invoked atrocities from across human history in the same way that a Romantic poet might invoke the Arabian Nights. Sometimes she delved into the past and found inspiration in such familiar horror reference points as Jack the Ripper, Elizabeth Bathory and the witch-hunts; other times she ripped tales of murders and warfare from…
Machina Delivers Suspense and Robots
Machina takes place in a near(ish) future, in which it has become increasingly clear that humans cannot stay on Earth longterm with any expectation of survival. That’s why rival tech companies are competing for a choice Government contract to send their AIs to Mars: to begin terraforming for humans to eventually migrate. Two rival companies…
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a Careful Study on Indian Society but Has a Disappointing Plot
When a child goes missing, nine-year-old Jai decides to use his amateur sleuthing skills to find the missing boy. He enlists his best friends, Pari and Faiz, to help him. But try as the trio might, they can’t stop more children from going missing. But with no substantial clues to follow, and absolutely no help…
Vampirella: Blood Invasion Breaststrokes Boobily Down the Stream
Dynamite Entertainment ventures into the world of prose novels with Vampirella: Blood Invasion, featuring a gorgeous cover by Jenny Frison. Unfortunately, the inside pages could use a little more polish.
