Monthly Archives: July 2017

Introductions to SFF, again

Posted on 29 July 2017 by Barbara Howe

Going back to a subject introduced in an earlier post, Introductions to SFF, here are some of the speculative fiction works my daughter (and the rest of the family) enjoyed. The age provided is only a guess at a lower-bound … Continue reading →

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On Reading Aloud

Posted on 22 July 2017 by Barbara Howe

I began reading to my daughter before she could talk. I’d sit her on my lap with the simplest of picture books and page through, describing what we were seeing, just to get her used to the routine. We worked … Continue reading →

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Cashelmara

Posted on 16 July 2017 by Barbara Howe

If you love huge multi-generational family sagas, meaty soap operas encompassing love, lust, cruelty, murder, and revenge, Cashelmara by Susan Howatch may be for you. This 700-page novel, covering thirty years and three generations of an aristocratic English family, is … Continue reading →

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Mercy Thompson

Posted on 8 July 2017 by Barbara Howe

In the urban fantasy Moon Called by Patricia Briggs, our world is awash in the preternatural: werewolves, vampires, the greater and lesser fae, and other assorted oddities. The fae have recently been forced out of hiding; concerned over the pace of … Continue reading →

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Reader’s Journal

Posted on 1 July 2017 by Barbara Howe

Years ago, when my daughter, now in university, had just started elementary school, my sister gave me a blank book for Christmas. Physically, it is a lovely object: spiral-bound to lie flat for writing in, about a hundred sheets, with … Continue reading →

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