literature
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Shirley by Charlotte Brontë
“If you think, from this prelude, that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken.” Jane Eyre is likely the most popular Charlotte Brontë novel, and perhaps for good reason: it has an iconic romance and main character, it is brilliantly told, and it raises so many interesting themes… Continue reading
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5 books about time
I think time is one of the most interesting things to read about. Time feels inescapable, and yet can mean something different to each of us. Of course, there’s the classic time travel story (Doctor Who, anyone?), but lately I’ve enjoyed reading other takes on time: how we spend it, how it affects us, and… Continue reading
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Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett
“The large-scale changes in fact were of no interest to me at all; it was the small things that remained constant which sort of attracted me.” We all have those books that we pick up and put down in the library or in bookstores — pick up and put down, time and time again, but… Continue reading
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The Overstory by Richard Powers
“Until today, he has never planted anything. But Now, that next best of times, is long, and reunites everything.” There are good books, and then there are those that make you fall in love with reading all over again, that make you savor each word and feel for each character. The Overstory is one of… Continue reading
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Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet
“Inside the castle hovered a shadow version of him, alone, watching this full, well-lit house from the other’s emptiness. Looking through the glass, he was divided in two.” When I first learned the premise of Dinosaurs — a man moves into a new home next to a house with a glass wall, showing him his… Continue reading
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What I read in April (belatedly)
Somehow it’s already mid-May, and the reading outside season has fully begun where I live. I figured it was high time to chat about the books I read in April. Saving Time by Jenny Odell. I read Odell’s prior book How to Do Nothing a few years ago and loved it. While I didn’t enjoy… Continue reading
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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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On slowing down and reading
Every January when I set reading goals for the new year, I tell myself that this will finally be the year when I slow down. I won’t care about how many books or pages I read. I won’t feel pressured to finish a book as fast as possible, or to rush through longer reads. Yet,… 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
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 