Book Review: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan [Introducing the Percy Jackson Project]
The start of The Percy Jackson Project: the stumble of a 20-something through the world of the demigods. Book one: The Lightning Thief.
Talia Franks
About Talia Franks
Posts by Talia Franks:
On Values
“Values don’t matter unless they describe behaviors and people are held accountable for them.” @PaulSchmitz1 Those words have been echoing in my brain ever since I attended the AADO-CASE Conference on Diverse Philanthropy and Leadership last week. What do I value? Where do I spend my time? Who do I spend my time with? Thinking […]
Book Review: Doctor Who: Molten Heart by Una McCormack
The thing I love most about Doctor Who novels is the chance they give to explore in depth the characters which aren’t always given enough of a chance to shine in the series itself.
Book Review: Outside the Charmed Circle: Exploring Gender & Sexuality in Magical Practice by Misha Magdalene
I had high hopes for Misha Magdalene’s Outside the Charmed Circle, and I am pleased to say that I was not at all disappointed. This book is a wealth of information about some of the subjects that I enjoy best: embodiment, gender, sexuality, and magic. More importantly, this book calls our attention to the fact […]
The New Normal: Thoughts Regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic
I’ve always been kind of obsessed with the word “normal.” And these days it’s coming up much more frequently, because people are talking about how the normal has disappeared. In the wake of COVID-19, what many people once considered “normal” is now gone. And it’s creating panic. People are hoarding toilet paper. Grocery store shelves […]
Book Review: They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
I wasn’t surprised by how thought-provoking I found They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. I bought this book in early 2019, but only started to read it in earnest this past January 2020, and […]
3 Benefits of Meditation
It feels like everyone these days is stressed out. And as if we didn’t have personal problems, the media is practically designed to wear us down — advertisers trying to get us to buy things politicians trying to get us to vote for them the Next Big Thing to binge watch that page-turning bestseller you […]
Book Reviews in Review Part II: Books that Center Blackness
Over the course of my time writing this blog I’ve reviewed a lot of books, many of which center blackness including books that discuss racism as a larger topic and thus also include marginalization on a wider scale. I thought that, seeing as how this is my last post during Black History Month, it would […]
Book Review: An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
When I told a colleague of mine that I was reading An African American and Latinx History of the United States, they were surprised, because they assumed that an African American history is distinct from a Latinx history, and therefore they should each be afforded their own book. My explanation to this person was the […]
On Critical Fandom
Last Friday night I was invited to participate in what ended up being a great Twitter Chat organized by Black Girls Create to discuss critical fandom as part of their month-long #BlackWizardHistory campaign. I really enjoyed the discussion, but I realized afterward that because it was such a great back and forth, the cohesiveness of the responses I had created got a little lost, and after reading what other people had to say, there is even more that I want to say. So I’ve strung together below an archive of my responses to the questions, with a short paragraph afterwards digging a bit deeper into the experience.
Book Review: How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
Seeing as how February is Black History Month, I thought that reviewing N.K. Jemisin’s fantastic collection of short stories How Long ‘til Black Future Month? would be an excellent way to start off this month’s reviews and posts. I loved all of these stories, each of them engaging and thrilling, so much so that I […]
Book Review: Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi
I thought that Children of Blood and Bone was a fantastic book, but Children of Virtue and Vengeance takes things to a whole new level. Keep in mind, this is a review for a sequel, so there are some small spoilers for Children of Blood and Bone ahead. At the end of Children of Blood […]
Book Review: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone is a book that reminds me why I love reading. I was glued to my seat for all 523 pages, and while I’m glad that the sequel is already out and I can continue right along with the story, I’m also furious with myself for letting such a […]
Growth, Change, and Potential: the Destination v. the Journey
There is a common and cliched saying, which goes something along the lines of “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” There have been multiple riffs on this, and I don’t mean to reinvent the wheel here, but I am interested in using a few different lenses that I’ve come across lately to […]
Book Review: Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive by Kristen J. Sollée
I’ll admit it, I picked up this book because of the title. But beyond being provocative, the ways in which Sollée illuminates the connections between witchcraft, feminism, and sex within Witches, Sluts, Feminists are powerful and incredibly enlightening. I found this book to be an intriguing mix of things I knew, things I didn’t know, […]