Reading Rambo

In 2015, my delightful friend who was then at Little, Brown sent me their upcoming book The Witches: Salem, 1692  by Stacy Schiff. It was an excellent book to brag about having. Did I read it? Of course not. I was busy making binders for my upcoming Cahokia Mounds trip and also sitting around a lot. But every October! I have looked over at the giant tome that is The Witches  and thought 'Maybe this year?' But I have invariably become distracted and left it alone, of course losing interest in November because witches are for October . And also other times if you're interested in them/are one/like Roald Dahl books or Practical Magic . Or just really like the Monty Python take on it. I'm about 70 pages into the 400+ page nonfiction breakdown of the 1692 events in Salem, Massachusetts, and can I say — well done. I mean, hot damn, Stacy Schiff. I'm not sure how you got over 400 pages out of something we don't really have great records of, but you also wr...

You know how you're walking along, minding your own business, and suddenly you just stop and go "SHIT, I haven't read Aurora Leigh  yet"? PROBLEM. SOLVED. TODAY. Well, in November. Yes! This November, a scant two weeks away, we will be reading Elizabeth Barrett Brown's masterpiece (?) Aurora Leigh , which is either a novel in verse or an epic poem or an epic novel/poem, the internet cannot seem to agree. "What's it about?" you ask. No idea! A lady poet? It looks like? But don't worry, the ever-fantastic Jenny of Reading the End will be divvying up the chapters for us so the readings are somewhat cohesive/not wildly scattered or ending at odd points. I AM EXCITED because this is a semi-deep cut of Victorian lit, and if you've read it, you can scoff at the superficially Victorianist  Jane Eyre  and Great Expectations  readers and say YES BUT WHAT DID YOU THINK OF AURORA LEIGH  oh you haven't read it I see (not that you would ever ...