A literary map of London, with its writers and characters charted by neighborhood. Which, this us just about the coolest. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul have nowhere near the literary relevance of London (not even close), but I would kill for a literary map of my hometown(s). Here's a start:

--Dr and Mrs Kennicot from Sinclair Lewis's Main Street honeymoon near Lake Calhoun; she's from St Paul
--Much of the action of War for the Oaks takes place in and around First Ave
--Zombie novel Fiend bops around St Paul and the St Paul suburbs, ending in the St Paul County Courthouse
--Meridel LeSeuer's The Girl takes place in the dodgy part of St Paul circa 1920s; not sure where exactly
--Franzen's Freedom takes place in Ramsey Hill in St Paul
-- Diablo Cody worked as a stripper in Sex World, Sheikh's, and other Minneapolis strip clubs, as detailed in Candy Girl
--Though much of Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods takes place in the Lake of the Woods (doi), it starts in St Paul when the protagonist's bid for governor fails
--Similarly, the (I think only pseudonymous narrator) of Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance starts in the Wedge neighborhood. Specific streets are named, something like 25th and Colfax
--For sure there's stuff by William Kent Kreuger, Garrison Keillor, Robert Bly, and Louise Erdrich I can't think of right now.

In the USA the word "Babbitt" has become synonymous for Philistine, thus for "a self-satisfied person who conforms readily to conventional, middle-class ideas and ideals, especially of business and material success" (babbitt. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/babbitt [accessed: April 22, 2015]). But how many of those who use the word know that it's actually the title of a novel and the name of its protagonist?

Babbitt was first published in 1922 and without doubt it must be called an important classic of American literature. Its author was Sinclair Lewis who would eight years later, in 1930, be the first US American recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. And yet, I'm led to believe that these days the novel isn't widely read anymore, if not forgotten by the great majority. What better reason to take it from my shelf and give it more than just a quick glance to see what it has to offer to a reader in the twenty-first century.

In fact, Babbitt is a novel that seems to me very up-to-date. It touches on many issues of our modern world, e.g. on the unhealthy craving for constant progress and growth, on globalisation = standardisation = uniformity, on the meaninglessness of life, on conformity and exclusion, on mid-life crises, on escape through entertainment,... I reviewed the novel at length on my other book blog – just click here to read what I wrote about it on Edith's Miscellany.

After reading Good Intentions, I have to say I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. As the third and last part of this trilogy, I was disappointed by the ending. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered which is more than a little frustrating at the end of a book or series!

The story follows Katie’s struggles against Wes who is intent on killing her, along with her relationships with Josh and the discontent sown by Braden. The book does very much portray the life of an average teenager, with all the love and strife they go through.

The characters are well-developed and easy to relate to. I was especially able to relate to Kate and feel her fears and anxiety. The story is well paced, not to slow, but at about the right speed to follow and fully understand what is happening.

Overall, I think this is a great book for a younger reader, but for the old dears like myself;  maybe not. Enjoy

NB I Reveived this book free for an honest review

Posted this to my personal book blog yesterday, reposting here in hopes of getting more book recs and suggestions for kick-ass scifi and fantasy books that don't feature the lead, secondary or periphery female characters getting raped (with, preferably, other similar problematic scenarios properly addressed/absent and a gender balance achieved). Your help is appreciated!

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I was having a discussion on twitter with some book reading peeps, and I was intrigued by a scifi book so many were discussing at that time. It felt imminent that I’d be buying and reading it, too. The premise sounded interesting, as did the sample for Kindle on Amazon. Somewhere, though, and I think it was a review on Goodreads, I read that it was quite violent. This made my spidey senses tingle just a tad, but enough. So I asked my fellow Twitter book peeps – is there rape? I didn’t find out in regards to the book on discussion, but was assured that the author uses “all the rape” in some of her other books.

And down went my perky reader flag.

Authors can have all the rape they want in their books, but apparently I’d still prefer to avoid it after reading one too many in a row in the last couple of years that turned me so far off the device, I might never find my way back to whatever path they were on. Instead, I think I’ll just try to keep to the path marked Sans All the Rape. It can still be a perilous road, but it doesn’t auto flip the rape switch.

In fact, if anyone out there has some recs for good science fiction and/or science fiction romance or fantasy and/or fantasy romance reads that are Sans All the Rape, that would be great. I’m talking about books populated with female characters that count. Female characters that are more than just a vagina or a girlfriend or an obvious peripheral stand-in to prop up the dudes around her so they might appear mightier and more awesome than the sun (I like dudes that are mightier than the sun just fine, but prefer equal treatment and consideration be given to the female characters around them).

I’ve read books that don’t do this, and it only makes me want more. They tend not to have all the rape. Because women aren’t just characters waiting for rape. No, it’s true. They have other parts besides a vagina (which, by the way, is such a nice part, when, you know, it’s actually appreciated as the female-owned part that it is), and those parts get showcased quite awesomely sometimes. Things like her valor, her integrity, her gosh-damned mistakes that she learns from and improves from, her kick-ass skillz with that futuristic fully automatic laser/grenade-launching/torch-firing/bullet-pounding shoulder canon (it’s quite big)…I think you get the idea. Something with a little balance fuh gosh sakes. Let’s make a list!

So if anyone has any recs, again, that would be great. And thank you. I’ll edit the post to reflect your suggestions.