One of my favorite opening lines in all of literature: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
Beautiful prose and magical realism. Do not watch the awful film adaptation with Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep.
I wanted to write stories the way Bradbury wrote stores, such as “All Summer in a Day” and “There Will Come Soft Rains.” I loved watching The Ray Bradbury Theater, and I even met Bradbury at a reading when I was a teen.
I read this book so many times that my paperback fell apart. Many kids growing up in the 80s have scary memories of the 1978 animated film adaptation. My husband gave me a copy signed by the author.
Devastatingly beautiful. There will never be another Toni Morrison.
I have a background in British Literature and love British sensation novels. Armadale is one of my favorites with its madcap plot, strange dreams and coincidences, deathbed confessions, and compelling villain Lydia Gwilt.
Sagan’s television series and related works profoundly impacted my understanding of existence.
Butler defined Kindred as “a grim fantasy.” It’s one that will stay with you.
I read a lot of dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, and I admire Butler’s sequel even more than Parable of the Sower.
Proposes a new relationship between teacher, student, and society. Considered one of the foundational texts of critical pedagogy. Freire calls traditional pedagogy the "banking model" because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge, like a piggy bank. He argues for pedagogy to treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge.
The ultimate battle between good and evil...
I was fortunate enough to meet Art Spiegelman at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) 2024. There is such intimacy in his visual storytelling of his parents’ survival of the Holocaust and depiction of Jews as mice and Nazi soldiers as cats.
I read the novel too many times to count and have a signed first edition. The 1978 film adaptation with its portrayal of the Black Rabbit with red eyes and dying rabbits left a lasting impression on young, GenX viewers.
I read the novel in one sitting, riveted yet frightened by its bleakness. I’ve watched the film adaptation and was drawn into the graphic novel, interested to see how others envision McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic world.
Another novel I could not put down, written by the brilliant Octavia Butler, Kindred is science fiction, horror, and Afrofuturism all in one. The ending is a gut punch and powerful metaphor.
I also met Marjane Satrapi and have a signed copy. I’m star-struck by authors. Satrapi illustrates her childhood and coming of age in black and white, simple yet beautiful and impactful. The animated film, available at the library, is worth viewing.
