Introverted Reader

Top Ten Long Book Titles

Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share our top ten long book titles this week. I decided to choose from books I've actually read. I also decided to choose five compound titles and five simple titles. Compound Titles: Don't Know Much About Mythology: Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in Human History but Never Learned Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Taught a Family - and a Whole Town - About Hope and Happy Endings The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred The Book of Awesome: Snow Days, Bakery Air, Finding Money in Your Pocket, and Other Simple, Brilliant Things The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel: Stuff We Didn't Actually Do, But Could Have, and May Yet Simple Titles And now for the simple titles that don't have colons or other dividing punctuation. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore Authors I didn't want the author names to make the titles look even longer so I'll add them here, in order: Kenneth C. DavisJanet ElderCarl-Johan VallgrenNeil PasrichaJill Conner BrowneJonas JonassonCatherynne M. VolanteBailey WhiteMary Ann Shaffer and Annie BarrowsWilliam Joyce That's my list! Have you read any of these? What are long book titles you've come across? Link up every Tuesday at That Artsy Reader Girl! I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site.

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October 12, 2020

Bookish Miscellany

Weekly Update for October 11, 2020

Welcome to my weekly update for October 11, 2020! I'm prepping this post on Wednesday because my husband and I are hoping to drive out to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument for some hiking for our anniversary weekend. It looks like a beautiful area, so we're excited! Any of you who read children’s and young adult books should know that nominations for the 2020 Cybils (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) are open through 11:59 PM PDT on October 15! If you’ve read any outstanding books for these age groups that have been published in the past year, you should nominate them! (I’m not a judge or affiliated with the Cybils in any way; I just think good books should receive recognition). Posted: Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks, read by Judy Greer, Max Brooks, Jeff Daniels, Nathan Fillion, Mira Furlan, Terry Gross, Kimberly Guerrero, Kate Mulgrew, Kai Ryssdal, Steven Weber--4.5 Stars The Deep by Alma Katsu, read by Jane Collingwood--3 Stars My Top Ten Fall Book Covers Read: Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics, read by Jorjeana Marie Currently Reading: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft, edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe, read by Amy McFadden--This caught my eye at BookWyrm Knits last week so I checked it out when I finished Daughters Unto Devils. Hole in the Sky by William Kittredge Watching: The Crown on Netflix. We've been very, very slowly working our way through this series for months now. I think we're only halfway through the second season. It is excellent but it's just a bit more somber…

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October 10, 2020

The Deep by Alma Katsu: Book Review

I liked this well enough. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the Titanic and the paranormal elements. I was never entirely sure what was going on, although I did have all the pieces pretty early in the story. It is refreshing when I can’t quite put everything together. My biggest quibble is that the story could have been tightened up [...]

Devolution by Max Brooks: Book Review

4.5 Stars. I’ve read mixed reviews of this book but I personally enjoyed the heck out of it. I would catch myself relating the events from each chapter to my husband until I finally decided that he needs to read it for himself and stopped talking. Now I’m bursting at the seams with the need to discuss it with someone! The beginning was not [...]

Bookish Miscellany

Top Ten Fall Book Covers

This week, That Artsy Reader Girl prompts us to share "Book Covers with Fall Colors/Vibes." I chose books that I've either read or that are on my TBR. I also tried to avoid horror covers (I have plenty of those) although I did veer into some Gothic covers. Here's what I found for my top ten fall book covers. First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen--That frosty apple shouts "autumn" to me. If you haven't read Sarah Addison Allen, you should fix that now. Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase, read by Nathalie Buscombe, Katie Scarfe, and Cassandra Campbell--The Gothic vibes coming off this cover are irresistible. I listened to this during my blogging break and don't remember much about it. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, read by Maggie Hoffman--I don't know how one tree has all the colors of fall but this one most definitely does. I found this book to be so sad. Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani--I'm a Blue Ridge Mountain girl, which is exactly where this series is primarily set. This cover feels just like early fall in the mountains of home to me. The Cider House Rules by John Irving--I'm not a huge fan of Irving. I don't dislike his works by any means but I don't love him the way most readers seem to. Still, this might be my favorite of his books so far, possibly because I read it "on location" while my husband was working in Maine. I love the blazing red tree and apples on this cover. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny--One of my best friends loves this book and bought it for me a few years ago. It takes all the tropes of classic horror novels (as pictured on the cover) and combines them into something…

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October 5, 2020

Bookish Miscellany

Weekly Update for October 4, 2020

Welcome to my weekly update for October 4, 2020! Friday is our sixteenth wedding anniversary. I'm not quite sure where the time has gone! We normally take our big vacation for the year in October but that's obviously out of the question this year. Oh well. When you're traveling with work because you actually enjoy traveling, every day off feels like a vacation! I posted last week about how Banned Books Week sneaked up on me. I usually post reviews or commentary every day of the week but I only had one review scheduled last week. I hit the easy button and read and reviewed a lot of kid's books to fill up the week. Any of you who read children's and young adult books should know that nominations for the 2020 Cybils (Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards) are open through 11:59 PM PDT on October 15! If you've read any outstanding books for these age groups that have been published in the past year, you should nominate them! (I'm not a judge or affiliated with the Cybils in any way; I just think good books should receive recognition). Posted: Everything below, except my selections for Six Degrees of Separation, is a banned or challenged book. How many have you read? Six Degrees of Separation Meme: From The Turn of the Screw by Henry James to Bird Box by Josh Malerman My thoughts on Banned Books Week A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Marlon Bundo and Jill Twiss-🌟🌟🌟🌟 My Top Ten Favorite Banned Books Melissa (Formerly published as George) by Alex Gino--🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman--🌟🌟🌟🌟 One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey--🌟🌟🌟 Walter the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray--🌟🌟🌟🌟 Read: In addition to all of…

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October 3, 2020

Bookish Miscellany

From The Turn of the Screw to Bird Box: Six Degrees of Separation

Hosted by Books Are My Favourite and Best on the first Saturday of every month, this meme asks us to start with one title and create a chain of bookish connections to see where it takes us. I purposefully kept my connections to spooky/horror reads for the Halloween season. My chain goes from The Turn of the Screw to Bird Box by Josh Malerman. (Isn't that vintage cover for The Turn of the Screw a hoot?) I haven't read The Turn of the Screw and honestly don't recall reading any of Henry James's work. But the book synopsis on GoodReads ends with this line: "For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them." That almost led me down the zombie road but I wanted this first connection to be from one classic to another. I decided to focus on a character who, wittingly or not, wants the evil that's about to befall him or her. And that led me to... Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker from Dracula. Their need for Dracula stems more from the supernatural power he gains over them than from any active desire on their own parts, but it's still there. As most of us know, there's a famous monster hunter who is introduced in Dracula: Abraham van Helsing. Another monster hunter I've read about is... Dr. Pellinore Warthrop from The Monstrumologist. This book, while aimed at a young adult audience, scared me to death. I'm normally a pretty calm person in real life but I jumped out of my skin at every little unexpected thing while I was reading this novel! A short story that also scared me to death is... "The Road Virus Heads North" by Stephen King, which I read in his collection, Everything's Eventual. King's short stories have always frightened me more than his…

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October 3, 2020

Walter the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle: Book Review

Little Betty and Billy choose Walter and bring him home from the animal shelter. Mom makes them give Walter a bath because he smells so bad. But they quickly realize that the problem is deeper than that: Walter is a farting dog. Billy and Betty don't mind but their parents can't take it. They try to fix the problem with visits [...]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey: Book Review

Ugh. This book. There was so much meat to dig into and at the same time it is not aging well. Not aging well at all. I apologize in advance for the length of this review essay. I've tried to cut it down but I have a lot to say....

This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman: Book Review

The rhyming couplets and colorful pictures in this book are sure to please little readers (or listeners, as the case may be). The parade is full of colorful characters, some in fancy dress, others in outfits that can be found at a Village People concert, but all happy and excited to be a part of this celebration. The illustrator [...]