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Leigh Ann’s Recs No. 5 – Works of St. Francis de Sales

A detailed stained glass portrait of St. Francis of Sales. He is depicted as a white man with a receding hairline and full beard, wearing a purple robe, gold cross pendant, and holding a blue Bible and white feather quill. The golden halo behind his head bears his name. Source: https://www.discerninghearts.com/catholic-podcasts/st-francis-de-sales/

We are all imperfect human beings, driven by passions. You and I are no exception.

On My Bookshelf: Community Recs No. 6

I must admit that I’m a slow reader as it is, but it took me ten days to read The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made. I decided to challenge myself and read one hundred books this year, so this was a misstep if I had to readContinue reading “On My Bookshelf: Community Recs No. 6”

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins Review

Cover of "The Wife Upstairs: A Novel" by Rachel Hawkins. New York Times Bestselling author. Background depicts a blue wallpaper with white flowers. A white stair banister diagonally bisects the lower left corner. The text is large and black.

Will I ever stop talking about Jane Eyre? The world will never know. Just kidding, the answer is no because here I am talking about it here again on the blog. Now I swear to you I did not go looking for this book, this book came on to me. All I did was lookContinue reading “The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins Review”

The [Book] Case for ThriftBooks

Do you use Amazon to purchase books? We get it. It’s cheap and easy, and generally has a fast delivery. We use it, too! There’s lots of reasons to use Amazon, and plenty of reasons to not use Amazon. But consider this: instead of helping Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy win Monopoly, try the Modcasters’Continue reading “The [Book] Case for ThriftBooks”

Indulging in language, navigating analysis, and more…

Language has been an ever-growing interest for me throughout my academic career at St. Mary’s University. As a fourth-year undergraduate student alongside a first-year graduate student in the Combined Degree program, I’ve taken every opportunity to work with language. Before getting into how I am working with language today, let me catch you up… DuringContinue reading “Indulging in language, navigating analysis, and more…”

Hypocriticisms: Double Standards in Literature No. 1

Clipart depicting two women. Left, a woman is bent double and struggling under a huge stack of books. Right, a woman stands on her tiptoes to add another book to the top of the stack.

If you’ve ever read a book, you might have noticed that sometimes there are some double standards. All kinds. It’s not limited to gender roles or sexuality. Just like in real life, you see discrimination for aspects like age, religion, justice/law, race/nationality, nepotism, and so on. In this series, we’re going to point out some double standards in some of our favoriteContinue reading “Hypocriticisms: Double Standards in Literature No. 1”

The Language of the Lost Generation: Fitzgerald & Hemingway

Introduction The research that I have done is to explore and distinguish the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. I analyzed six sentences from the texts of The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises. By looking at the writing style and grammatical syntax from both texts, we see how similar and differentContinue reading “The Language of the Lost Generation: Fitzgerald & Hemingway”

Opinion: On the Joys of Rereading

2 by 4 panels with alternating yellow and blue background, each with a hand holding a book. Top row, left to right: against a yellow background, two hands with purple sleeves hold a green-covered book; against a blue background, a hand with an orange sleeve holds an open book, thumb in the center crease of the pages; against a yellow background, a hand with a brown sleeve holds a thick, closed book so the viewer sees the pages rather than the spine; against a blue background, a hand wearing a dark blue sleeve holds a closed orange and gold book. Bottom row, left to right: against a blue background, hands with yellow sleeves is opening the cover of a purple and gold book; against a yellow background, hands with dark purple sleeves are holding open a book with a purple ribbon bookmark; against a blue background, a hand with purple sleeve is holding two stacked books, the top with black and gold cover and the bottom with green and white cover; against a yellow background, a hand with a pink sleeve is turning the page of an open book. Source: https://www.readitforward.com/essay/article/books-people-reread/

The joy of rereading comes from finding and learning about ideological and cultural nuances. Little doses of culture at a time.

Analyzing Prescriptive Grammatical Differences Between the Psalms

Last December I decided to challenge myself to read the entire bible in a year. Several months into my journey, I felt a huge shift within myself and was able to connect to what I was reading on a much deeper level. Fast forward a few months to August; the start of my semester takingContinue reading “Analyzing Prescriptive Grammatical Differences Between the Psalms”

Leigh Ann’s Recs No. 4 – Song for a Whale

Book cover for Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly. At the top of the cover is the sentence, Be loud about something. Beneath that is the silhouette of a girl standing on a pier, her arms stretched wide. The moon is large and setting behind her, and the yellow treeline is reflected on the water such that it resembles a sound wave. At the bottom of the cover is a whale swimming, and bubbles rising towards the surface. Most prominent colors are blue, purple, green, and yellow.

“Can you imagine that?” Ms. Alamilla asked. “Swimming around for all those years, unable to communicate with anyone?”

Yes.

She said something else about frequencies, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore. I looked through Mr. Charles, as if I could still see that whale on the screen. Blue 55 didn’t have a pod of friends or a family who spoke his language. But he still sang. He was calling and calling, and no one heard him.