It’s #NonFicNov month: we’re encouraged to read non-fiction (or analyze past non-fiction reads). To ease the way, Shelf Aware, Doing Dewey, Julz Reads, and What’s Nonfiction have some cool weekly prompts to ponder.
This week we pair up a fiction book with a related non-fiction one. Here are my suggestions!
Each one gives a different twist, a new perspective to the Odyssey, and uses a musical / poetic lens for that. Penelopiad gives voice to Odysseus’s neglected wife Penelope, and Wilson gives a new spin to existing biases in this Greek epic.
It’s #NonFicNov month: we’re encouraged to read non-fiction (or analyze past non-fiction reads). To ease the way, Shelf Aware, Doing Dewey, Julz Reads, and What’s Nonfiction have some cool weekly prompts to ponder.
Four questions for the first week into #NonFicNov:
What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year?
Do you have a particular topic you’ve been attracted to more this year?
What nonfiction book have you recommended the most?
What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?
My answers below in slideshow (because I’m still new to WordPress and wanted to give it a try):
It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the Six Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.
Ichabod Crane, a schoolteacher, came to Tarry Town in the glen of Sleepy Hollow to ply his trade in educating young minds. He was a gullible and excitable fellow, often so terrified by locals’ stories of ghosts that he would hurry through the woods on his way home, singing to keep from hysterics. Until late one night, he finds that maybe they’re not just stories. What is that dark, menacing figure riding behind him on a horse? And what does it have in its hands? And why wasn’t schoolteacher Crane ever seen in Sleepy Hollow again?
Sleepy Hollow reminds me of all things slumberous, hidden, forgotten and deathly. Not surprising, since the Halloween Full Moon just turned the corner, eh?
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. And this week, we get to share our top 10 non-bookish hobbies (this is really difficult!).
Full Disclosure: I really don’t read much of non-fiction. But that’s something I want to correct during this Non-Fiction November challenge (hosted HERE and HERE). Below are the top 10 Non-Fiction Books from my TBR pile. Wish me luck!
1] Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell I’ve been a huge fan of Gladwell since the Outliers days. So Talking to Strangers is definitely up: “Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.“
The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley is set in a world where humans co-exist with the Folk and the Other Folk. It’s not a peaceful co-existence though. The Folk, who are perennially famished, require a tithe from the humans to let their cattle and crops alone. And the indigenous Other Folk, with their magical abilities, create havoc of their own from time to time.
The Folk Keeper’s job is to help keep the status quo by overseeing the tithe. Corinna Stonewall, disguised as a boy at the beginning of our tale, is one such Folk Keeper. She has lived a hard life, and is angry, so angry, at the world. It is no wonder then that she is so prickly, always on edge, and wants so desperately to be special, to have some power over those that have hurt her.
Top 5 Tuesday is a monthly-weekly meme hosted by MeeghanReads. This Tuesday’s topic is “Top 5 Books with Witches“. It’s October, after all!
Baba Yaga lived in a hut standing on chicken legs, in the middle of a dark forest. If you’ve read Russian folklore before, you know that Baba Yaga was often the stepmother’s wicked and wise relative, who would put the heroine to the test. If the heroine failed, she would be dinner. Baba Yaga remains the quintessential Witch for me.
Rachel Morganin Kim Harrison’s The Hollows Series. Rachel Morgan is a witch who works as a runner (police officer) for Inderland Security (IS). The IS is the police for the paranormal species of society, like weres, vampires, banshees, pixies, witches, demons, etc. The IS was established some 40 years ago, when a virus outbreak caused mayhem (when doesn’t it?) and forced the paranormal community into light. If you’re interested in the darker UF genre, The Hollows is your next series.
Laura Chant, in Margaret Mahy’s The Changeover. I wonder why Changeover is not better known. It won the Carnegie Medal in 1984 and since then, has also been made into a fairly decent movie (trailer below). Laura Chant’s toddler brother is possessed by an unnervingly wicked goblin-esque creature. Laura has only one way out: to change over and claim her “witchy” powers.
Elizabeth Proctor, in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. There are few tales as horrifying and enduring as that of the Salem Witch trials in The Crucible – and that, a 1953 play, no less. Witch-hunting is a theme that has been portrayed in countless books and shows, including Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. But Crucible stands out, for exposing the hypocrisy and devastating power of socially-sanctioned violence. Here’s Miller on why he wrote TheCrucible.
Good Witch of the Northand Wicked Witch of the East, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. These were probably the first witches I ever read about (outside of Disney, I mean). Without the Good Witch, there would be no Yellow Brick Road, and without the Bad Witch, there would be no Silver Shoes. I think I’m not making any sense… But really, there’s no tale like The Wizard of Oz.
Margaret Coventry is having a small bout of rebellion against her match-making family, when she is kidnapped and taken by force into the alternate universe of Plenilune. You see, Rupert de la Mare, soon-to-be Plenilune’s overlord, has been challenged whether he can take a human wife, and the nefarious Rupert doesn’t let challenges slide.
This is only a small part of the plot (the blurb would make you think otherwise). Margaret is a fish out of water as she begins to learn – and love – the magical landscape and history of Plenilune and its people. Along the way, Margaret breaks a curse with the help of a dragon, hunts down a wild boar (not intentionally), and rescues a kingdom. Oh, and she meets Dammerung, the War-wolf.
Book Blurb: The fate of Plenilune hangs on the election of the Overlord, for which Rupert de la Mare and his brother are the only contenders, but when Rupert’s unwilling bride-to-be uncovers his plot to murder his brother, the conflict explodes into civil war. To assure the minds of the lord-electors of Plenilune that he has some capacity for humanity, Rupert de la Mare has been asked to woo and win a lady before he can become the Overlord, and he will do it—even if he has to kidnap her.
(The blurb really doesn’t do the book any justice, but I suppose the book cover art more than makes up for it. Book cover art is by Carlos Quevedo, his amazing work HERE.)
