Elizabeth Bastos

Elizabeth Bastos has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, and writes at her blog 19th-Century Lady Naturalist. Follow her on Twitter: @elizabethbastos

Russell Hoban’s Frances the Badger

Russell Hoban’s “Frances The Badger” #kidlit series was a staple of my childhood. My mom read Bedtime for Frances to ...

A is for Awesome: Re-reading THE SCARLET LETTER

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter was required reading for high school freshman English. When I read it then, “A” was ...

A Pox on Both Your Bookcases: Books About the Plague

I read thematically. Sometimes for months I am interested in Victorian scientific instruments, other times books about how to write ...

‘Dragonriders of Pern’ Series: Calling All Dragon Nerds

Few genres are more fabulously dorky, and in my opinion, therefore more fabulously escapist, than science fiction about communicating telepathically ...

#readingfail: Famous Novels I Never Finished

Grapes of Wrath. The turtle in the road is a profound image, it is also just so profoundly sad, too ...

Books to Re-Read Every Five Years: George Eliot’s Middlemarch

Everyone has a book they re-read every few years because, as they age and change, so does their experience of ...

Our Reading Lives: A Wrinkle In Time

When I was eleven I was a proto sci-fi/fantasy book nerd. I didn’t know from genre, but I knew I ...

Essential Pepin: Jacques Pepin, French Cookbook Chef and Chevalier

French Chef Jacques Pepin embodies the American idea of a Frenchman: he’s opinionated, precise (might one say “fussy?”), continental. He ...

Spring Gardening: How-To Plant and Garden Books

This is the time of year, at least on the mid-Atlantic coast, I grasp at straws: winter will be over ...

Parenting For Real: A Few Reading Recommendations

Laundry: The Home Comforts of Caring for Clothes & Linens by Cheryl Mendelson (Might as well do it right since ...