Rory Stewart walked through India, Pakistan and Nepal in 2002, a time that was very unstable given the events of 2001 and the subsequent war. He decided that he wanted to walk through the heart of Afghanistan as well. He met with a lot of bureaucracy, but he was eventually given permission to undertake his Continue Reading…
Jess, his mom, dad, grandmother and farmhand/adoptive brother, Johnson, live a quiet life in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. They farm, visit with relatives, play some baseball, and get up to a whole lot of no good, as my grandmother would say. Jess’s dad is a mischief-maker. He just can’t help it. Johnson Continue Reading…
Jean Perdu is a broken man, not really living his life but only existing. His one great love left him twenty years ago and he’s never moved on. He puts together gigantic puzzles in his spartan apartment and sells books on his book barge, The Literary Apothecary. He knows exactly the right book to sell Continue Reading…
I walked into the library on my lunch break to pick up a nonfiction book for my before-bed reading. I have enough unread novels at home. I was not going to check out any fiction. I grabbed the book I was there for and then started wandering the fiction stacks. It couldn’t hurt to just Continue Reading…
Tin Win is a successful lawyer who simply walks out of his life one day. His children have both graduated from college so he apparently has decided that he’s a free man. There’s a search but it quickly comes to a dead end in Bangkok. His daughter Julia decides several years later to go looking Continue Reading…
Reviewed September 7, 2009 Busy week + training + overtime=forgettable review. Sorry, guys. These stories/poetry were pretty dark. But then it’s been a while since I read any Gaiman, so maybe I’ve just forgotten how dark he can be. I would really put this on a dark fantasy/horror lite shelf, but that’s fine by me. Continue Reading…
When I was offered a copy of Neil Gaiman’s newest short story collection, Trigger Warning, for review, my first thought was to jump on it. I adore Neil Gaiman’s work. He is one of only about three authors who get their own shelf name on my GoodReads account. And then I remembered that I wasn’t Continue Reading…
In a hospital in England, the anti-Christ is born, making unlikely allies of the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale. They’ve both spent quite a bit of time on Earth and they actually kind of like the place. They’re not ready for the End of Days. So they set out to make sure it doesn’t Continue Reading…
Arlene left her hometown of Possett, Alabama after she graduated from high school and never looked back. She has withstood bribery, threats, and guilt trips from hell from her Aunt Florence and remained in Chicago for ten years. But now Alabama seems to have found her. A face from Arlene’s past shows up on her Continue Reading…
Mary Roach has a gift for making science accessible and–dare I say it?–even funny. In this book, she tackles the digestive system. Covering topics ranging from thorough chewing (as in 700+ chews for One. Freaking. Bite.) to the miraculous properties of spit, from being eaten alive to the possibility (or not) of chewing your way Continue Reading…
Soooooo……..yeah. I just rated Walden, one of the great American classics, two stars. That probably says more about me than it does about the book, doesn’t it? Don’t answer that. But here’s the thing–well, a few things. 1. I’m not generally an abstract ideas kind of person. I like narrative and stories and characters that Continue Reading…