Book Review
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Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
“A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. A brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is a mesmerizing, unflinching consideration of the human impulse to ensure… Continue reading
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Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
“Anna read and understood everything, but she found no pleasure in reading, that is to say, in following the reflection of other people’s lives. She was too eager to live herself.” What an incredible, incredible novel. I’d been intimidated by Anna Karenina for years, despite reading Tolstoy’s tome War and Peace a few summers back… Continue reading
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Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
“The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.” In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explores what he calls our System 1 — the intuitive, fast-moving side of our thinking — and System 2 — the slower, more logical side of our thinking. He discusses… Continue reading
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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
“And wasn’t it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.” Claire Keegan’s short novel Small Things Like These is so easy to become enamored… Continue reading
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The White Album by Joan Didion
“Of course great hotels have always been social ideas, flawless mirrors to the particular societies they service.” (“In the Islands”) Published in 1979, The White Album is a collection of Didion’s essays that were previously included in magazines. These essays span a myriad of topics, from Didion’s thoughts on California, Hollywood, and Hawaii to the… Continue reading
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Top ten books of 2022
I’m so grateful to have had a lovely reading year in 2022. Narrowing down a list of ten favorite books was difficult, but these are the ones that have stuck with me the most over the course of the past year. Here they are, in the order that I read them: 1. East of Eden… Continue reading
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Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
“It is the hour of the pearl–the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.” I’m obsessed with the atmosphere Steinbeck created in Cannery Row. It’s a sort of liminal space where thoughts, hopes, and dreams can run wild and judgment dissipates, if only for a brief while. I read this book… Continue reading
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The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
“No, no–there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I don’t see–what I don’t fear!” The Turn of the Screw by Henry James is such an underrated, under-appreciated autumnal read. This book… Continue reading
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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.” I didn’t remember much about my first time reading Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter years ago. I recalled a bit of dense writing, a picturesque Salem setting, and the piercing image of Hester standing on the scaffold, emblazoned with an embroidered “A.” I began this… Continue reading
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Dear THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Alexandre Dumas: A gold star for this year’s Big Book of the Summer
Dear The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: For the past handful of summers, I’ve chosen a larger, more intimidating book to read over the summer months. Previous participants in this little challenge have been Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.… Continue reading
About ME //
i’m holly — former english major, current twenty-something book lover, allergic to nuts. drop me a line at nutfreenerd@gmail.com or on instagram.
nut free nerd 