If you can’t say something nice…

Being curious about how other book bloggers handle posting negative reviews, Dewey at The Hidden Side of a Leaf decided to create a meme to find out how some of them deal with books they didn’t like. Please consider yourself tagged if you feel like answering the questions yourself. 1. When you dislike a book, do you say so in your blog? Why or why not? Yes, as long as I’ve actually read the entire […]

Friday Fill-ins…and Thursday, too!

This week’s Booking Through Thursday topic was a fill-in-the-blanks question, rather than the usual short answer/essay, and I’m answering it late again – but that lets me have a twofer and combine it with my Friday Fill-ins. BTT question suggested by John: How about a chance to play editor-in-chief? Fill in the blanks: __________ would have been a much better book if _____________________. Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people […]

Book Club at the movies: “Atonement”

Book Club at the movies: “Atonement”

AtonementDrama, 2007 My book club has watched the film versions of our book selections before. In fact, there was a period where it seemed like we were only selecting books that had been made into movies. However, I think this may be the first time that we’ve had a book going at the same time that the movie version was still in theaters, and since a couple of our members are finding the reading to […]

Calling all friends of the libraries!

Calling all friends of the libraries!

Yeah, I know I’ve posted a hundred times today – a hazard of a day off at home, with kids who are old enough not to require constant attention – but this item has a timeliness factor involved. I mantioned Pamie in this week’s “Scrapactular” round-up. I’m quite sure that’s the first time she had ever heard of me, but as a fan of her old Gilmore Girls recaps on Television Without Pity, I’ve known […]

Booking Through Thursday 2-7: “But enough about books…”

Booking Through Thursday 2-7: “But enough about books…”

Okay, even I can’t read ALL the time, so I’m guessing that you folks might voluntarily shut the covers from time to time as well… What else do you do with your leisure to pass the time? Walk the dog? Knit? Run marathons? Construct grandfather clocks? Collect eggshells?Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers […]

Scraptacular #2 – the Highlight Reel

I do just about all of my blog-reading through Google Reader, and I have a lot of subscriptions in there. I’m going to share some of the posts I’ve “starred” in there over the course of the week here, and I’ll try to do that on a semi-regular basis, starting now (but I’m not yet ready to commit to how “semi” that “regular” basis will be…we’ll have to see how it goes). Maybe you’ll find […]

Language lessons

My uncle’s a great guy, but most of the e-mails he forwards on are irritating in one way or another – very off-color jokes, political screeds that are opposed to my views, that sort of thing. Every now and then, though, he sends along something interesting. I enjoyed these pieces on the idiosyncrasies of the English language, and they kind of fit in with the “reading” thing – plus, you can’t get an easier post […]

The challenge: working with (and wanting – oh, and reading) what you’ve got

Even if one doesn’t go on record and “officially” make New Year’s resolutions, there’s something about the turn of the calendar that seems to prompt a round of “out with the old, and in with the new.” Or at least the “out with the old” part…some of it, anyway. It can help you find new ways of looking at what you have left. Tall Paul and I spent most of the first weekend in January […]

Book cataloging – having, holding, and letting go

As I mentioned in this post, I have, as of the first week of January, achieved one of my “theoretical” New Year’s Resolutions – my books are officially cataloged. The project took the better part of several days, but overall it was far less painful than I had anticipated, thanks to the joys of modern technology, and of course, now I wonder why it took me so long to get around to it, although I […]

Drama/class

The book I’m currently reading (which I expect to finish and review no later than this weekend) has gotten me thinking about class in America, the original “classless society.” (That’s technically not the same as a society with “no class,” although sometimes it turns out that way.) As far as reading is concerned, there seems to be more genuine drama to be found at either end of the class spectrum, especially as the ends seems […]

Booking Through Thursday – “Statistics”

Booking Through Thursday – “Statistics”

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but . . . how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit? I posted about that report here last week, and also […]

They probably won’t read THIS, either

I know there are bigger things to get wound up over, but my head-shaker of the day comes via Lisa at Books. Lists. Life – an AP poll finding that 1 in 4 adults didn’t read a single book last year. Not one. I know that some people aren’t readers, but I can’t grasp that concept any more than I can understand people who don’t like chocolate. Granted, this survey only concerned reading books, not […]