Yearly Archives: 2014

New on the Shelves…

This looks to be an interesting series: The Magician’s Daughter: A Valentine Hill Mystery by Judith Janeway Magician Valentine Hill always introduces her act by announcing “Reality is an illusion. Illusion is reality, and nothing is what it seems.” When Valentine is reunited with her grifter mother, “nothing is what it seems” becomes true in real life. A wealthy socialite turns out… Read more

Quotables

“I love to read. I wish I could advise more people to read. There’s a whole new world in books. If you can’t afford to travel, you travel mentally through reading. You can see anything and go any place you want to in reading.”  – Michael Jackson, the King of Pop Read more

New on the Shelves…

This is also a movie I’m really looking forward to seeing: Men, Women & Children by Chad Kultgen The author of The Average American Male and The Lie returns with a shocking, salacious, and surprisingly subtle new novel of the average American family. Like Neil Strauss and Nick Hornby, Chad Kultgen has the capacity to enthrall and astonish even the most… Read more

New on the Shelves…

I get to read a book about books and reading! The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller An editor and writer’s vivaciously entertaining, and often moving, chronicle of his year-long adventure with fifty great books (and two not-so-great ones)—a true story about reading that reminds us why we should all… Read more

Review: Flings by Justin Taylor

Flings: Stories by Justin Taylor, a book of short stories, is interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying. The blurb on the back names Taylor “A master of the modern snapshot” and they might well be right. The book is like a stack of Polaroids, taken by strangers and with no context to explain them. (Think Awkward Family Photos.) They are fascinating, funny,… Read more

Quotables

I think this explains why so many lonely kids lose themselves in books. “The world was a terrible place, cruel, pitiless, dark as a bad dream. Not a good place to live. Only in books could you find pity, comfort, happiness – and love. Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn’t ask anything… Read more