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Monday Musing: 20/05/13

May 20, 2013January 24, 2019 ~ The Book Habit

With The Great Gatsby taking a bit of a hammering in the film reviews, I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to affirm my love for F. Scott Fitzgerald. Enter one of my favourite passages from literature…

Have a wonderful week!

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My name is Laura and I am a book addict. The Book Habit is a chronicle of my literary adventures, indulging my decades-long love affair with the written word. Here I post reviews, as well as anything else related to the literary lifestyle.

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Women have had a historically unique relationship with the supernatural. Hand-in-hand with the subjugation of a group is the need to explain and condemn any deviation from social norms. The childless woman, too friendly, too reclusive, too beautiful, not beautiful enough - all have been justified through the idea of female perversion through witchcraft, devilry, and demonic possession. It is no surprise then that women are the founders of gothic literature, in all of the genre’s profound, transportive glory. From Ann Radcliffe to Mary Shelley - as well as the more contemporary efforts of Angela Carter and Octavia Butler - gothic horror has been a way for women to reclaim their own sense of identity in a world determined to confine them. The original goths, female authors broke boundaries and stereotypes as they grappled with the rationally irrational to stretch society’s idea of the shadowy possibilities of unconventional heroines, predatory men, and gory lustfulness. Today on The Book Habit, I’m looking at the history of women as authors of the best gothic literature - asking what exactly lies at the heart of our unique ability to conjure the very best of gothicism’s imaginative potential. Click the link in my bio to have a read!

“The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably sweet.”

October has been a bumper month for books, both personally and across the literary world. We had a rule-breaking Booker Prize announcement that celebrated the power of female voices in fiction, some great new releases, and the publication of some of the deepest quantitative research to-date on literary censorship in US schools. In my corner of the world, books have played a massive role in my celebration of all things October. I’ve recognised the darkening days and dropping temperatures with a truly prolific month of reading. I passed the 52 book mark for 2019 and have closed out the month knee-deep in a return to my childhood love for Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. So grab a massive mug of tea, a couple (or more) of biscuits, and click the link in my bio to read about all of the most important literary happenings from October! And let me know what your favourite October read was, down in the comments! 🍂

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“The flowers cupped in the garden with a midnight, unguessable sweetness, and the grass rippled and murmured in a small voice that was an intensification of silence. The stillness was like the end of the world. She was alone. In her carapace of white satin, she was the last, the only woman. She trembled with exaltation under the deep, blue, high arc of sky.”

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