It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. As always, it’s been a few weeks since I last posted, so here are just some highlights. Posted: Sign up post for the Southern Literature Challenge hosted by yours truly! I hope you’ll join me! My sign-up post for The Eclectic Reader […]
Southern Literature Reading Challenge 2014
PLEASE LINK YOUR REVIEWS ON THE REVIEW LINK-UP PAGE It’s that time again! I’m hosting the Southern Literature Reading Challenge for the fourth year in a row. I can’t believe it’s been that long already! The rules: Read a book(s)–non-fiction or fiction of any genre, for any age group–written by an author from the South […]
The Eclectic Reader Challenge 2014
Edit: Completed as of December 12, 2014! Well, I’ve finished reading books for all the categories anyway. I did not do well with the reviewing part. Oh, well. There’s always next year! ShelleyRae at Book’d Out is hosting The Eclectic Reader Challenge again in 2014. As she says, “In it’s third year, the aim of […]
The Trivia Lover’s Guide to the World: Geography for the Lost and Found by Gary Fuller: Book Review
Professor Gary Fuller sets out to fill in the gaps in your geography knowledge. I would guess that I know a little more geography than the average American but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still woefully lacking. I downloaded this book on a nook Free Friday (I believe), thinking that I might […]
I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak: Book Review
Ed Kennedy is an underage cab driver with no prospects. He’s the very picture of your average young man. But someone has chosen him to carry out some tasks that require him to be anything but average. I was incredibly nervous about reading this book after reading The Book Thief. That book immediately became my […]
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi: Book Review
Synopsis from GoodReads: Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s Calorie Man in Thailand. Undercover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko… Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. […]
The Commitment by Dan Savage: Book Review
As the “gay marriage debate” was heating up back in oh, 2005, Dan Savage and his boyfriend (they dislike the word partner) were in the middle of their own debate. Should they or shouldn’t they? They’d been together ten years, they’d adopted a son together, neither had any intention of leaving the relationship, they fully […]
Naked in Death by J. D. Robb: Book Review
Lieutenant Eve Dallas is assigned to lead a high-profile murder investigation into the death of a Senator’s granddaughter. But the granddaughter was a “licensed companion,” i.e. prostitute, and she was murdered in a pretty graphic way. Working mostly alone, Dallas must find the murderer before he kills again. I had such a love/hate relationship with […]
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery: Book Review
I hesitated over this book for a long time. I’d somewhere picked up the idea that it involves a lot of Philosophy, which I read as Big, Boring Thoughts That Have No Practical Application to Anyone’s Life. Is that bad? Probably. But I came across it in Will Schwalbe’s memoir, The End of Your Life Book Club and it piqued my…
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie: Book Review
Two young men, children of parents that the Communist government in China deems enemies of the state, are basically exiled to a remote mountain for “re-education.” Their parents’ “crimes” don’t even warrant the word; they’re basically just too educated for the government’s comfort. The teens find a harsh life waiting for them on the mountain. […]
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins: Book Review
Walter Hartright finds a woman, all in white, wandering down the road to London in the middle of the night. As they talk and walk, she mentions that her happiest times were spent at Limmeridge House as a child. By coincidence, Walter is leaving to become a drawing teacher at this house the very next […]