Feb. 4 marked the 25th anniversary of American writer Patricia Highsmith’s death. Born Mary Patricia Clangman, Highsmith took her stepfather’s last name for her writing career. She was best known for her psychological thrillers which were neither mysteries nor detective novels. Today she is most known for writing the book that inspired the film “Carol.”
BY SIDNEY BOKER ’21
On April 1, award-winning author Vonda N. McIntyre died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 70. According to her obituary in the Guardian, McIntyre was at the forefront of science fiction in the 1970s, inspired by other feminist authors like Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ. McIntyre wrote about women in a genre in which women usually weren’t represented and explored gender in many of her works.
BY SIDNEY BOKER ’21
A hush of anticipation fell over Gamble Auditorium as the first student-poet took the podium for the 96th annual Kathryn Irene Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Competition. It honors Glascock, who died of pneumonia a few months after graduating from Mount Holyoke. Ahmed’s success marks the third consecutive year for a Mount Holyoke student to win the competition.
BY SIDNEY BOKER ’21
New year, new books! This list of books to look out for in 2019 was compiled from Literary Hub’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2019,” Goodreads’ “43 Highly Anticipated Books of 2019” and Entertainment Weekly’s “50 most anticipated books of 2019.” This year’s new books span genres including YA, thriller, contemporary, fantasy and essay collections. The books spotlighted here are a few of this year’s top picks curated to meet a range of literary interests at Mount Holyoke.
BY SIDNEY BOKER ’21
“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott is being adapted into a new film, set to be released in 2019. According to the New Yorker, Alcott wrote the book in 1868 after publisher Thomas Niles prompted her to write a “girls’ story.” Before “Little Women,” Alcott published thriller stories in different weekly papers under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard to help her financially-strapped family. The Alcott family consisted of Bronson, Alcott’s transcendentalist and jobless father, her mother Abba and her three sisters, who served as Alcott’s inspiration for the March sisters in “Little Women.”
BY SIDNEY BOKER ’21
Book subscription boxes are just what they sound like: a recurring (usually monthly) delivery of a themed assortment of products. Two examples of these genre-focused boxes stand out in particular for their superior quality of monthly new Young Adult (YA) literature and literary goods, like pins, t-shirts and bookmarks.
BY SIDNEY BOKER ’21
With the new year comes new books! To help navigate the slew of new stories out this year, here is a small tasting menu of the most anticipated books, with genres including thriller, fantasy, YA, contemporary and nonfiction. These books here have been compiled from Bustle’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2018”and Barnes and Noble’s “Best of 2018” lists.
