Westport, CT (PRWEB) November 18, 2015
Unlocking Worlds, just published by Griffins Wharf, provides an expansive view of literature, from high-brow classics and contemporary fiction to mass market paperbacks. The result is a highly accessible review of 150 novels, memoirs, and literary nonfiction.
“There are a lot of classics,” author Sally Allen says, “that get hidden away in universities, and there are a lot of mass market books that don’t get the attention they deserve. It was time all these books had a conversation with each other.”
Unlocking Worlds brings that conversation to all readers and guides them on a tour of books as art and as personal experience. “In the end, novels can do much more than simply entertain, but deep meaning and entertainment don’t need to be mutually exclusive,” Allen says.
Books are grouped by themes, so readers can explore topics that appeal to them. “Think of it as a more nuanced version of your Netflix recommendation list,” says Allen. From time travel to thrillers to life in the Soviet Union, Unlocking Worlds explores and ties together unusual and usually gripping lists of books. Allen’s book recommendations span interests and reading levels, and the result is some unique pairings (for example, Pulitzer Prize winning All the Light We Cannot See, the Harry Potter series, and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations).
Although Allen has a PhD and is a college professor, she has no pretentions about what is a “good” or “bad” book. Allen says: “For some readers, any type of hopeful or positive ending, the type typical of romantic comedies for example, is rejected as being unrealistic or simplistic. I am not one of those readers. The work of living is, to me, the work of choosing to find meaning, purpose, and hope. I appreciate authors who understand that we are always making choices and who show me what it looks like to choose meaning, purpose, and hope even, and especially, when it is most difficult.” With this, the recommendation lists in Unlocking Worlds combine spy thrillers and Russian classics, not only giving readers new books to explore but also giving them new ways to think about books.
Paperback Version
ISBN-13 978-0983644613
ISBN-10 0983644616
Author Website
http://www.sallyallenbooks.com
Author Social:
@bookishinCT (Twitter/Instagram)
Publisher Website
http://www.griffinswharfproductions.com
Links
Amazon Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Worlds-Reading-Companion-Lovers/dp/0983644616
Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Worlds-Reading-Companion-Lovers-ebook/dp/B017VOU7NC
