I think Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang—a debut author—has potential to be a hit this summer. (It is due for publication at the end of April). It is an easy read that goes down smooth while also being a roller coaster of an experience. Don’t come here for literary acrobatics, but for social…
My main take-away after reading the enormous (600-page) sci-fi Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky: this is a tale of two styles. The story jumps back and forth between a group of humans on one of the last spaceships in the universe (concentrating on one character, Holsten), and the intellectual and social development of newly…
February is short and it has Valentines Day. I like to pull out a new romance to read in February. It can be contemporary, it can be a classic, it can be cross-genre. Here are some books I have read in previous years that I would recommend: I noticed that I have read a lot…
I’m a few weeks slow on the upswing, but what a few weeks it has been! Yeah, I mean what you think I mean, but I also mean that everyone is sick with norovirus and RSV and pneumonia this January (including us with a stomach bug and flu) and I have a couple deadlines looming…
The cover. That’s what a lot of reviews mention because, well, most people expected to read one kind of thing based on the cover and then got something else. Myself, I read Miss Iceland by Audur Ava Olafsdottir (ohd-thur ah-vah oh-lahfs-dah-tur—ish) because it was a book club read for one of the clubs I am…
I got my dream job! Well, at least as far as part-time, out-of-the-home dream jobs go, I got my dream job. I am a bookseller, which doesn’t sound totally magical to everyone, but book people read me loud and clear. I am working in a brick and mortar, independent, small bookstore. I knew I was…
Over the holidays I went to a number of book-related holiday parties. This is not usual for me. In 2024, I joined six book clubs, only two of which I moved to the “casual” signification, as well as two writing groups. Well, when you do that, apparently there’s a lot more to do in December.…
Scythe by Neal Shusterman is book one of the Arc of a Scythe trilogy, one of four (almost five) books in the Scythedom, but because I won’t be reading the second or third for some time, I am going to review this one now. You can’t have missed seeing this book around, especially if you…
I have fallen behind on book reviews over the (long) holiday season. I read Andrew Joseph White’s Hell Followed With Us in October. It’s a memorable book though, and I have notes as well as a book club discussion synopsis (provided by the leader—I was unable to go). I remember that this book was way…
Warning: unpopular literary opinion. This book was everywhere last year (meaning 2023). The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by respected, successful author James McBride was called a top novel of the year, including at Goodreads. But how a third of Goodreads readers rate this five stars, I have no earthly (haha) idea. Sure, as one…
“Even a grown man can be an orphan.” –Mr. Dickens and His Carol, Samantha Silva
I had some fun while reading this book. I like Victorian literature. I like Charles Dickens (‘ books. I’ve never met the man). And I love A Christmas Carol. So it was right up my alley, especially for the holidays. And when I saw Samantha Silva’s pedigree? I was intrigued, excited even. But it was…
I really don’t know what to tell you to read for the beginning of 2025 from the books I’ve already read. I have yet to read a real winner from my list of best New Years books, and I have already told you my favorite reads from 2024. Perhaps I should reiterate them. Best reads…
This book is titled The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (by Barbara Robinson), but it is also the best Christmas book ever. I am not trying to be cute (exclusively). I am in love with this short, children’s chapter book. It is hilarious and poignant. It does have some outdated content, but I went into it…
I doubt that I have much to add to whatever discussion and reviews there might be of this book, but I do like to review all books I read, especially the classics. And The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg is a classic. Though at this point I suppose the 2004 Tom Hanks movie is…
One of my son’s favorite books as a child was Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, by Mo Willems. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Sleigh! was a big seller this season, so I bought it and made my sixteen- and twenty-year-old kids sit on the floor while I read it to them. Sure,…
Despite listening to her podcast (Books, Beach and Beyond) occasionally and hearing about her for years, I hadn’t read Elin (pronounced like Ellen) Hilderbrand (notice the r in the middle) before. So since Winter Street came up on a lot of best-of Christmas reading lists—and people love her—I bought a copy and settled in with…
I did find “Afterward” by Edith Wharton in a slim volume all by itself and read it that way, but it is really a short story, not a book or even novella. Ethan Frome is one of my favorite books, though I don’t think I have read much else of hers (like The House of…
While I read Whiteout by a bunch of authors, I was unimpressed. It probably didn’t help that I didn’t understand what I was reading until much later. But as the book went by, I was charmed by the idea of it as well as the spirit of it. And some sections were written better than…
When Among Crows entered my personal library when I attended a Halloween season reading event featuring a few authors of horror. I chose the book that looked less scary as my “with ticket” book. Or maybe I chose it because it was by the most famous author there, one that I recognized. But then I…
the starving artist 