I’m not including a formal Bookkeeping Status Report section in this post, but I’ll give you a quick update, in accordance with Unfinished Person‘s efforts to keep me honest in meeting the aims of the Sunday Salon: I am making good progress with my re-read of The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, as part of the Read-along I’m co-hosting. Read-along-ers, please don’t forget the “in-progress” discussion Heather J. is hosting at Age 30+…A Lifetime of […]
Category: reading
Sunday Salon 3/7: The Festival is coming! The Festival is coming!
April 24-25, 2010, at UCLA The books, the authors, and the book bloggers are coming to the largest public book event in America – will you come, too? Last year, the LA Times Festival of Books was the site for a great first-time meet-up among a group of book bloggers from all around Southern California, and a few from further north who came down for the weekend. In a crowd and in various combinations, we […]
Book talk: *Janeology,* by Karen Harrington
Disclosure: I bought this book for my personal library. *Purchasing links in this review go through my Amazon Associate account. Janeology Karen Harrington (blog) Kunati Inc. (2008), Hardcover (ISBN 160164020X / 9781601640208) Fiction, 256 pages Opening Lines: “I stared at my attorney as he began his defense that I did not share the blame in the murder of my son. That I was not neglectful in leaving my two children in the care of my […]
Sunday Salon: The “marching on” edition
Musings on March, or reading through Birthday Month: Since I’ve given up book-buying for Lent (see below), I won’t be adding much to TBR Purgatory between now and the end of March, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, Easter doesn’t come until a week after my birthday, which means I’ll have to delay gifts to myself (or using bookstore gift cards that I might receive – hint, hint) just a little longer, which […]
The perception of danger and “The Possibility of Everything”
NOTE: I originally reviewed Hope Edelman’s The Possibility of Everything (with appropriate disclosures) in October 2009. I’m revisiting it in connection with the Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club discussion of the memoir across its own sites and members’ blogs (originally scheduled for today), which will feature a Q&A with the author. “It’s a phase. It’ll pass.” Those five words, repeated over and over, got me through some of the quirkier stages of my son’s […]
Book talk: *Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress,* by Susan Jane Gilman
Disclosure: This book was purchased for my personal collection. *Purchasing links in this review are connected to my Amazon Associates account; I will earn a small percentage of any sales these links generate. Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress: Tales of Growing Up Groovy and Clueless Susan Jane Gilman (blog) Grand Central Publishing (2005), Paperback (ISBN 0446679496 / 9780446679497) Memoir, 368 pages Opening lines (from the Introduction): “This is a book about growing up ambitious […]
Book talk: “The Wives of Henry Oades,” by Johanna Moran (TLC Book Tour)
Disclosures: I received an Advance Readers Copy (ARC) of this book for review from the publisher, via TLC Book Tours. The book is currently available in stores. *Purchasing links in this review go through my Amazon Associates account. The Wives of Henry Oades: A Novel Johanna Moran Ballantine Books (2010), Paperback (ISBN 034551095X / 9780345510952) Fiction (historical), 384 pages Opening Lines: “A common bat on the other side of the world elects to sink its […]
Sunday Salon: Bookkeeping, Bookmarking…and Nagging!
ENCORE! The Re-Run Section (if you haven’t read ’em before, they’re New to You!) In case you missed the big announcement on Tuesday, here’s a quick encore: I am co-hosting a Read-Along of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow with Heather J. from Age 30+…A Lifetime of Books and Rebecca of The Book Lady’s Blog. It’s a re-read for us, but we’d love for both first-timers and other re-readers to join us! To help get you […]
Book Talk: *ShapeShifter: The Demo Tapes, Year 2* by Susan Helene Gottfried
Disclosure: I purchased this book directly from the author, who was kind enough to personally autograph it for me. ShapeShifter : The Demo Tapes — Year 2 Susan Helene Gottfried Lulu.com, Paperback (ISBN 9780557096565 / 0557096561) Fiction, 140 pages Book description (from the author’s website): The Demo Tapes: Year 1 introduced the reading public to ShapeShifter and the two men behind this fictional band: Trevor Wolff and Mitchell Voss. The Demo Tapes: Year 2 brings […]
Read THE SPARROW with Heather J., Rebecca, and me (UPDATED: and win a copy of the book!)
I haven’t had the chance to re-read many books in the last few years, especially since I began blogging in March 2007. However, there’s one book I read a couple of years earlier that I’ve really been wanting to read again. Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow was one of my “Books of the Decade,” and here’s what I said about it (and its sequel) then: “If I had a TBRR (to be re-read) list, these […]
Sunday Salon: What’s Valentine’s Day got to do with it? (Pretty much nothing, to be honest.)
Booking Through Thursday asked a very good question this week: How can you encourage a non-reading child to read? What about a teen-ager? Would you require books to be read in the hopes that they would enjoy them once they got into them, or offer incentives, or just suggest interesting books? If you do offer incentives and suggestions and that doesn’t work, would you then require a certain amount of reading? At what point do […]
Book Talk: *American Rust*, by Phillip Meyer (TLC Book Tour)
Disclosure: I received a hardcover copy of this book for review from the publisher, via TLC Book Tours, as part of a tour to promote its publication in paperback (now available in stores). *Purchasing links in this review go through my Amazon Associates account. American Rust: A Novel Philipp Meyer Spiegel & Grau (2009), Hardcover (ISBN 0385527519 / 9780385527514) Fiction, 384 pages Opening Lines: “Isaac’s mother was dead five years but he hadn’t stopped thinking […]
