Tag Archives: The Handmaid’s Tale

Blogging the Hugos 2021 (Series Launch)

Posted on November 8, 2021 by Brenton Dickieson

It isn’t often that I get a popular novel as it first finds its way into the world. I’m usually years behind in my TBR and motivated to find new books by book clubs and upcoming classes and film adaptations. … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging the Hugos, Fictional Worlds, News & Links, Reviews | Tagged Black Sun, Canadian literature, Eye of the World, George R.R. Martin, Gideon the Ninth, Harrow The Ninth, Lady Astronaut Universe, Margaret Atwood, Mark Sampson, Martha Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, N.K. Jemisin, Neil Gaiman, Network Effect, Piranesi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Rebecca Rosenblum, Robert Jordan, Science Fiction, Susanna Clarke, Tamsyn Muir, The City We Became, The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments, Wheel of Time | 4 Comments

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the UK’s Favourite Book

Posted on August 9, 2019 by Brenton Dickieson

According to a OnePoll survey of 2,000 UK adults, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is Britain’s most popular book. It is an intriguing find, but not inconsistent with other surveys and with research by people like Stephanie Derrick (see … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged Anne of Green Gables, Arthur Conan Doyle, C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Bronte, Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Life of Pi, lion the witch and the wardrobe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stephen King, The Da Vinci Code, The Handmaid's Tale, The Hobbit, The Lion, The Lord of the Rings | 43 Comments

What Counts as a Classic? A Conversation with C.S. Lewis and Goodreads

Posted on December 18, 2018 by Brenton Dickieson

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a little post called “Reading and the Cultural Moment, with C.S. Lewis.” Though I now think I could have said it even clearer, I was sharing once again C.S. Lewis’ critical idea that … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged 1984, A Wrinkle in Time, Animal Farm, C.S. Lewis, George Orwell, Goodreads, Jane Eyre, lion the witch and the wardrobe, Margaret Atwood, Narnia, Netflix, Old Books, On the Reading of Old Books, Terry Pratchett, The Handmaid's Tale, The Hobbit | 48 Comments

The Mythogenic Principle, Or Why Reading Zombie Lit at the Beach is a Very Bad Idea

Posted on July 12, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

It’s one of the reasons watching horror films is so fun, isn’t it? Though the possibility that a serial killer who has spent too much time collecting comic books or reading 19th century engineering reports is hiding behind your couch … Continue reading →

Posted in Reflections | Tagged Charles Williams, H.P. Lovecraft, Horror, I Am Legend, IT, Joss Whedon, Prince Edward Island, Reading, Stephen King, The Handmaid's Tale, The Mythogenic Principle, The Name of the Wind, WWZ, Zombieland, zombies | 7 Comments

Five Words We Should Banish from our Vocabulary, Or Preventing Verbicide with C.S. Lewis

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Brenton Dickieson

As a voracious reader and great lover of language, C.S. Lewis was concerned about “verbicide,” what he called the “murder of words.” As Lewis describes in Studies in Words (7-8), verbicide happens in a number of ways: Inflation of a Word’s Value: “Inflation is … Continue reading →