I live in a college town and we have our fair share of tattoo parlors. There are 2 shops almost next door to each other on the main drag through town and a tattoo and body piercing place down at the end of a row of bars, near where I turn onto my street. That one has an interesting crew… Read more
If you work in an office, you have probably watched the bigwig’s desks to see which management self-help books are in vogue. Whether it’s The One Minute Manager or Who Moved My Cheese or First, Break All the Rules, managers like to look like they are up to date on the latest management theories. Rubies in the Orchard is a… Read more
I really wanted to like this book. After all, “A Scotsman’s Tale of World Travel, Whiskey and Crime” sounds right up my alley. I love colorful memoirs, adventure stories, all that, and I thought I would really enjoy this one. I didn’t even make it through 100 pages. There are a lot of reasons I was disappointed in the book.… Read more
“This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as nontraditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank . . . If that’s the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!” Apparently, this is going… Read more
I honestly thought that nothing – nothing – could get me to read Jane Austen again. I know that she has some rabid fans, but those Victorian manners-and-money romances were really not my thing. I was frustrated, even as a teenager, by female characters who seemed completely powerless. Elizabeth Bennett, her life ruined because some man she doesn’t even like… Read more
The Glassblower of Murano is an exceptional first novel written by Marina Fiorato, who is herself half Venetian and a graduate of the University of Venice. Her love of the city and its history comes through clearly. It’s a very romantic story, full of intrigue and heartbreak; to understand it, a little history is helpful. Murano is well-known for its… Read more
The Glister had a great premise: boys are disappearing in a small town that is dominated by an abandoned chemical plant. It seems certain that the plant has poisoned the town, both physically and mentally. The townspeople are deeply distrustful on the land where the plant was situated and of what went on there. Is it somehow responsible for the… Read more
This is the book Spenser fans have been waiting for – it’s certainly the one I’ve been waiting for. I have all of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels in my library. In some cases, I have them in hardcover, paperback and audio versions (yeah, I can be a bit obsessive). In all those novels, Spenser has talked very little about… Read more
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane has plenty to recommend it: the Salem Witch Trials, crazy grad school mentors and a hot, agnostic steeplejack. Certainly sounds like a good start to a story, combining historical fiction, a bit of mystery and maybe something a little supernatural. It starts with a very interesting question about the Salem witch trials, one that… Read more
If anyone needed this self-help book, it was me. I actually have at least one thing in common with author Gail Blanke – both of our mother’s were extremely organized, while both of us struggle to keep ourselves organized. That’s a good start. In addition, as I have mentioned before, I am a packrat. I need to go through things… Read more