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"Not making it far in this one. I thought it would be nice in the audiobook rotation since I have been reading Fitch Riley’s biography and Beach’s own letters and memoir, but it was the opposite. The tone didn’t hit for me and it’s all just too fanciful and romanticized in a way that felt off. When I looked more into this I found a lot of credible critique of this portrayal of Beach, so I returned it." — Sep 14, 2025 02:00PM
"Not making it far in this one. I thought it would be nice in the audiobook rotation since I have been reading Fitch Riley’s biography and Beach’s own letters and memoir, but it was the opposite. The tone didn’t hit for me and it’s all just too fanciful and romanticized in a way that felt off. When I looked more into this I found a lot of credible critique of this portrayal of Beach, so I returned it." — Sep 14, 2025 02:00PM
Stating that Du Bois was “a genius and chose to be a Communist,” King insinuated that Americans’ reflexive aversion to political radicalism remained an obstacle to critical thinking and good judgment.
“It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.”
― Jacob's Room
― Jacob's Room
“Grips slipped. Hers had from every surface. She's shaped nothing after all, only been crushed and reshaped. No wonder she felt for the brownstones, the cripples, now filling chaotically with no regard for her plan.”
― The Fortress of Solitude
― The Fortress of Solitude
“Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts.”
― A Room of One’s Own
― A Room of One’s Own
“For books continue each other, in spite of our habit of judging them separately.”
― A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas
― A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas
“The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions-there we have none.”
― The Second Common Reader
― The Second Common Reader
Michelle’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Michelle’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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