Chicago wins a bid to be the host of the World’s Fair in 1892, the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America. The city’s top architects immediately swing into gear to make this a fair to remember. Paris had hosted a world’s fair a few years earlier and everyone said that it couldn’t be beaten. Continue Reading…
Miles Roby is the manager of The Empire Grill in the heart of Empire Falls, Maine–or what’s left of it, anyway. This once-thriving industrial town is dying now that the factories have all closed. Empire Falls still has a tightly-knit, optimistic community though. There are constantly rumors about new buyers for the factories. Miles feels Continue Reading…
It’s only been about a week since I read this book, but I’m already hazy on the details, so this will be vague. Basically, this super-rich guy hires an engineering firm with a perfect record of doing the “impossible” to extract a meteorite from the ground of a Chilean island off of Cape Horn. In Continue Reading…
I have to start with this actual physical book. If you read my blog, you might be aware that I don’t accept books for review. Reading on a schedule was starting to feel like work, so I decided to just say no to free books and read what I want when I want. It works Continue Reading…
Vida is 19 years old and dying. She’s been dying her entire life. Not in the vague way that we are all destined to die, but in a way that has led her through multiple heart surgeries in her short life. This time, it’s for real. Her doctors are talking weeks if she’s lucky. She’s Continue Reading…
Dreams Made Flesh is a collection of four short stories/novellas centered around Jaenelle and her court. One of the events takes place immediately after the third in the Black Jewels series, so anyone reading this should keep that in mind. It definitely has spoilers for the previous books. My favorite story by far, was “The Continue Reading…
Hanna Heath studies and restores rare books. She is offered the chance of a lifetime when she is contacted by the United Nations to restore a rare illuminated Haggadah at the end of the Bosnian War. Hanna manages to pull out a few clues to the book’s history. As she follows up on the clues, Continue Reading…
Dr. Montague, a researcher into paranormal activity, has rented the fabled Hill House for the summer. The house has a reputation for being haunted. Very few people have managed to stay in it for more than a night. In order to sort of help the house do its worst, he invites people to stay with Continue Reading…
I tried, but I give up. The first story, “Santa Land Diaries,” was great. Sedaris’s tale of working as a Macy’s department store elf is hilarious! Those people who inevitably make the news every Black Friday by pepper spraying and punching their fellow shoppers? I think they all go to Macy’s at Christmas. Sedaris writes Continue Reading…
Gumdrop Coal has gotten the axe. Founder of the Coal Patrol, those elves who deliver coal into bad little kids’ stockings, Gumdrop is out on his ear when Santa decides that every child deserves a real gift on Christmas. Gumdrop takes it hard. His methods might be harsh, but he believes they’re fair and they Continue Reading…
Wade Watts is just your average kind of guy, living in his aunt’s trailer, trying to get through the last months of high school, playing video games, and trying to solve a multi-billion dollar puzzle. Yup. Billion with a b. See, it’s 2044 and video game designer James Halliday has just passed away without an Continue Reading…