The Monstrosity Gazette: A weekly smattering of all things literary...

Bookish Quote of the Day: 
 

...the book remains the carrier of civilization, the voice of the individual.

                                           -Barbara Tuchman

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Today in Literary History...

On this day in 1895 Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure was published. Early critics called it "Jude the Obscene," and dubbed its author "Hardy the Degenerate." Dismayed by such criticism, and mindful of what had been said about his earlier books, Hardy thereafter wrote only poetry: "If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have let him alone."

Click here for more daily literary history.

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New Book on My Radar:

A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
by Brigid Pasulka
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Aug. 2009
320 pages


Summary in a Sentence:


Weaves two tales--one in which Pigeon, a young man, falls in love with Anielica and builds a house for her family before fighting for the resistance during World War II--and another in which Pigeon's granddaughter, Beata, lives in a 1990s Krakow without hope until she uncovers family secrets.

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Interesting Links to Peruse: 

• Booking Mama is hosting the Shelf Discovery Reading Challenge. Dig out your favorite childhood reads! 
•  S. Krishna reviews Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates.
• Author Jancee Dunn professes her love of Betsy-Tacy. 
• On independent bookstores: Evolve or die.