Circe is a fascinating and creative imagining of the life of Circe, a character mentioned in The Odyssey as one of Odysseus’ lovers on his travels from the Trojan War back home. In The Odyssey, Circe is a witch who turns Odysseus’ men into pigs but is then herself bested and tamed by Odysseus (with help from Hermes). In Circe, when Circe hears how the bards sing of her, she thinks, Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can […]
Women & Espionage in the World Wars
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn is an ambitious work of historical fiction that straddles two world wars and their aftermath, and that shines a light on the heroic work of female spies. Quinn uses a solid base of historical fact and real people to create her fictional heroine Eve (aka Evelyn Gardiner, aka Marguerite Le Francois), a spy for England in WWI who made shattering sacrifices and has never healed from her tragic and brutal experiences. Eve is an alcoholic recluse when, in the […]
Another tale of brave teenagers in time of war
Girl in the Blue Coat won the 2017 Edgar Award for Best YA Mystery and is one of the most thrilling and engaging books I have read in a while. I started this book one afternoon and tore through 200 pages in no time, and I couldn’t wait to finish the last 100 pages the next day. Set in 1943 Amsterdam, Girl in the Blue Coat tells the story of Hanneke Bakker, an 18-year-old girl who is trying her best to support her parents and […]
The bravery of teenagers puts us all to shame
The Librarian of Auschwitz is a fictionalized account of real events that occurred in the Auschwitz-Birkenau labor camp, 1944-45. The main character Dita Adler is based on a real person named Dita Polachova Kraus who was 15 years old when she and her parents were rounded up with other Jews from Prague and sent to the Nazi camps. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dita worked in what was known as the “family compound” in Block 31. Prisoners here were given “special treatment”; children were allowed to survive and […]
What if God was one of us?
Nikos Kazantzakis is probably best known for his novel Zorba the Greek, which was made into an award-winning film starring Anthony Quinn in 1964. Yet, Kazantzakis is also infamous for The Last Temptation of Christ, a novel so provocative that it was placed on the Vatican’s Codex of Forbidden Books in 1954. For this novel and for some of his other works, Kazantzakis was nearly excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox Church and was denied a Christian burial in Greece when he died in 1957, although […]
Fine YA novel about being teen, female, outsider in Saudi Arabia
Last week I came across one of those irresistible quizzes that pop up on social media. This one promised to give you something to read based on the types of TV shows you choose to watch. Naturally, I took the quiz and then I retook and retook, because I can’t stand not knowing what other books might be out there for me. Anyway, one of the recommendations was A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena. The blurb sounded pretty good, and as it turns out, […]
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