I found this article really interesting: Study finds that fiction helps us understand ourselves and others. That makes perfect sense to me. After all, stories are about people and what they think and what they do and how they react. What better way to learn about people and learn to deal with them? It’s especially interesting because a lot of… Read more
It’s a parent’s worst nightmare: one minute your child is there – the next minute, he’s gone. In The Disappearance, Joshua and Nathalie Sandler’s son, Daniel, disappears and their lives change completely. The Sandlers are a very happy family. Joshua runs a furniture sales business; Nathalie is a professional cellist. Daniel is 14 years old, generally a pretty good kid.… Read more
Welcome to another exciting edition of Wondrous Words Wednesday! I have been having toruble lately finding good words for this post. I guess I just haven’t been reading the sort of books that lend themselves to new vocabulary. So, here are some that I have picked out of books I’ve yet to read, off of websites, or in conversation: 1.… Read more
Starting today, I will be writing a weekly book review column for a great website called When Falls the Coliseum. I am really thrilled about the opportunity to write with this talented group of people. I will still be posting regularly here, but I hope you’ll all stop in and wish me good luck at my new digs! My first… Read more
It’s Tuesday and time for a Teaser! You know the rules: take your current book and pick a 2-sentence teaser. No spoilers! This week, I’m departing from my usual and reading a YA book. It’s called Skeleton Creek and it interested me because of the format. The book looks like a journal, even printed in a handwriting font, and tells… Read more
How could a book-lover resist a mystery that revolves around the New York Public Library? This is a novel about collecting great books and antique maps, about family secrets and public images. I was caught up in the fabulous descriptions of the collections and their eccentric collectors. In fact, I found the books more interesting than the mystery. This is… Read more
Attention fans of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series: starting tomorrow night, HBO will begin airing a new series, based on the novels! I don’t have HBO anymore, so I hope someone stops by to tell me if the show is any good. (And a big thank you to Dave over at Read Street for the heads-up!)… Read more
Biker Poetry! I couldn’t pass this one up when Lisa Roe at OnlinePublicist offered it. I thought biker poetry has to be a bit like pirate poetry – wild and unruly and maybe just a bit romantic. There’s an outlaw aura about bikers, very much a mentality of being outsiders when it comes to regular society, a part of their… Read more
I’ve had some great stuff come in this week! I love getting new books, having new things to add to my LibraryThing Library, and having to find more room on my overcrowded bookshelves. Here are some of the things that have been added to my library recently: Rubber Side Down: The Biker Poet Anthology edited by Jose (JoeGo) Gouveia. Did… Read more
If you’re tired of the current glut of wimpy, sparkly-shiny vampires, this book is the perfect antidote. Del Toro’s vampires are brutal, disgusting, ravenous monsters. No romance here, folks. Ephraim Goodweather heads up the Canary Project, a “rapid-response team of field epidemiologists organized to detect and identify incipient biological threats.” These could be biological weapons, man-made outbreaks or naturally occurring… Read more