My dear Mr. Dickens, I hope you are well and not at all rolling over in your grave. (It is, after all, nearing Christmas and renditions of your famous holiday tale are promenading before audiences who are mostly wondering whether they actually turned off the oven or whether the turkey they pretend to like is…
I was inspired this morning as I walked to practice piano for an upcoming recital... this would have been great, had I been inspired to practice. Rather, I was inspired to set the opening of Wordsworth’s The Prelude to music. My roommate (bless her) stopped me just in time: “Ryanne, if you write a melody and…
Dystopian novels have been "in" for several years now. The Hunger Games and Divergent were the most popular reads of my high school days. Brave New World, 1984, and Anthem were on the AP reading lists. I continue to devour Ray Bradbury's work. However, we forget the purpose of dystopian fiction, which is to warn and protect us from creating such futures in reality.…
Too often, I find myself staring in admiration at my bookshelves. The ornate covers of collectables, the crackled pages of old favorites, the bright illustrations of new editions... *sigh of delight* To my abashment (isn't that a lovely word for a not-so-lovely feeling?), I own and admire many books I have yet to actually…
"May your books be deep and your tea well-steeped." -RJ McLaren
During my journey home from Italy, I was super bored and, thus, my brain went crazy and came up with a novel idea that I am ridiculously excited about. Thankfully, I hit 50,000 words on my other novel draft, so I was able to set that one aside without too much guilt to begin this…
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman having read or seen Pride and Prejudice, must be in want of a Mr. Darcy." - Jane Austen and Ryanne McLaren* *Note: The above quote does not actually represent the entirety of this post, but I did think it rather apt in capturing the feelings of Austenites…
Most of my best friends are bookworms. We all have our favorite genres, authors, eras, you name it. We are an eclectic group of athletes, honors students, writers, artists, musicians, and gamers, yet we are united by books and our need for words. However, it has come to my attention that this is not how…
Modernist author Joseph Conrad once said that “of all men’s creations, books are the nearest to us for they contain our thoughts… they resemble us in their precious hold on life.” According to Conrad, books not only act as the vessels that preserve the themes of human life, but as mirrors that reflect the variations…
I was perusing Pinterest this afternoon and came across this nifty picture. Seeing that it included classic books, I stopped my mindless scrolling, looked through it, and nearly shouted aloud. No. No. No!!! No. No. NO. N.O. No. What was so frustrating about this pin? Well, first of all is the fact that it lists…
