Diane Parrish

Listicles

Tasty Shapes and Noisy Colors: Books about Synesthesia

Until I was about 7 or 8 years old, I thought everyone heard “Friday” as a cluster of small purple circles and “Saturday” as a length of polished chrome pipe. I was shocked when my mom told me that was not the case. While she took it in stride, my…

Diane ParrishJuly 21, 2025

Listicles

Literary Moms Who Deserve More than a Single Day of Celebration

Every May we spend the second Sunday of the month celebrating mothers — the good, the not-so-good, the hard to categorize. Books about all kinds of mothers are part of every literary genre. From fairy tales to dystopian science fiction, we usually find a mother in the story. Some of…

Diane ParrishMay 20, 2025

Listicles

Short Story Collections: The Lasting Impact of a Few Well-Chosen Words

We’ve been telling each other stories since our hominid ancestors gathered around campfires in darkened caves. While no one knows for certain, of course, some anthropologists speculate that the drawings on cave walls and rock face carvings all over the ancient world were illustrations of those stories. The date the…

Diane ParrishMarch 20, 2025

Listicles Miscellany

Under-Read: Five Underappreciated Excellent Books

In conversation with a fellow reader recently, I asked if she had read the novel Stoner by John Williams. “Oh yes,” she replied. “I’m in the cult.” Oh! While I don’t think all the fans of this book are busy with secret rituals, there are I suspect, fewer of them…

Diane ParrishFebruary 20, 2025

Listicles

Going to Great Lengths — Five Big Books Easy to Escape In

While chatting with friends recently about the books we’d read in 2024, someone asked, “What is your all-time favorite book?” For a few in the group, the question was a tough one because there are so many great ones. For me the answer was easy. Middlemarch has been my favorite…

Diane ParrishJanuary 20, 2025

Listicles Miscellany

The Dog Stays in The Picture in These Novels

Who doesn’t love a story about a good dog? Who doesn’t begin a story about a good dog with trepidation that it will end in tears, ala Old Yeller? In this season of puppies for Christmas and old dogs curled in front of the fire, it might be nice to consider…

Diane ParrishDecember 20, 2024

Listicles Miscellany

Books About Cooks, and the Ingredients That Can’t Be Measured

Like most families, we have a few Thanksgiving traditions. Early morning we all make our way to the starting line of our local Turkey Trot road race. Some of us run, some walk, some ride in strollers. Later, everyone gathers at my house for a more-or-less traditional feast. There are…

Diane ParrishNovember 20, 2024

Fiction Listicles

Classics and Comedy: Books That Mix Serious Themes with Surprising Humor

Sometimes a book that’s known for one thing — revealing the mores of 19th Century English country life, for example, or capturing the eternal struggle between good and evil — is so famous for that one thing that no one pays attention to the equally noteworthy humor it contains. The…

Diane ParrishOctober 21, 2024

Listicles Miscellany

5 Books About Forests, Trees and the People Who See Both of Them

If you live in the Northeast, as I do, you are well aware of the signs: maple trees beginning to flame with color; ornamental grasses waving their feathery tassels in the wind; tomato plants spent and wilted from the effort of packaging all those seeds into edible containers. Autumn is upon…

Diane ParrishSeptember 20, 2024

Listicles Miscellany

Diane Parrish’s Lit Garden Blooms With Books of August

When William Faulkner was asked about the meaning of the title of his book Light in August, he said, “in August ... there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality…

Diane ParrishAugust 20, 2024

Fiction Miscellany

Is Forgiveness Ever Easy? Two Authors Get to the Heart of It

We all love a climactic moment of reconciliation when one person proclaims to another “I forgive you!” in a scene that ends with joyful tears, a loving embrace, and the apparent release of some kind of pixie dust that obliterates all pain. While I long to trust the magic and…

Diane ParrishJuly 19, 2023

Diane Parrish

Tasty Shapes and Noisy Colors: Books about Synesthesia

Literary Moms Who Deserve More than a Single Day of Celebration

Short Story Collections: The Lasting Impact of a Few Well-Chosen Words

Under-Read: Five Underappreciated Excellent Books

Going to Great Lengths — Five Big Books Easy to Escape In

The Dog Stays in The Picture in These Novels

Books About Cooks, and the Ingredients That Can’t Be Measured

Classics and Comedy: Books That Mix Serious Themes with Surprising Humor

5 Books About Forests, Trees and the People Who See Both of Them

Diane Parrish’s Lit Garden Blooms With Books of August

Is Forgiveness Ever Easy? Two Authors Get to the Heart of It

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