It seems like just a second ago that I received the email congratulating me on a parent-writer fellowship for the Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing’s annual conference. I don’t say this just to brag. Along with the email were some very nice words about my writing. Along with the nice words was a comparison…
Rarely do I listen to a book as opposed to pick up a physical copy and read it with my eyeballs. (Almost never do I read with my eyes a digital copy.) The exceptions to this rule are two: one, when I have a migraine and I am laying there bored out of my mind…
I assigned two books as alternative reading for my Pandemic Book Club, for May. One of them was Deadliest Enemy. It was the one book that was holding my attention, for most of the month, but I kept sticking it on the back burner because there were always more books that I “had” to read…
I have often recommended the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and thought of it warmly. I was a little surprised, then, when I pulled it off the shelf to do a re-read and a review and my notes and markings stopped about two-thirds of the way through. Hmm… So, I liked the book…
I can’t decide whether or not I like The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser. I have such opposite reactions to different aspects of it. When it comes down to it, I would recommend it for its merits, but I spent the first third of the book wanting to put it down because…
A couple weeks ago I attended a (virtual) seminar. The speaker/teacher was Scott Reintgen and the title of the seminar was “How to Get an Agent and Navigate Publishing.” This was a lot to cover in an hour and a half on a Monday night, but the presentation was great and the information was quite…
April, which means we are on the fourth book for our Pandemic Book Club, that book club where we try to find mental health amidst over a year of stress, fear, isolation, strife, etc. After a couple religious books and a book about the science and biology of stress, we have now read Don’t Feed…
Treat Your Own Back by Robin McKenzie is a book that my doctor recommended to me years ago, during my first big back failure. I have a genetically “bad disc” in my lumbar region, and right after I had my second child, I found myself face-down in the mud of my driveway, unable to move…
One of my favorite books in elementary school was The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong. For my review of that book, see HERE. When my co-op, language arts class of middle schoolers arrived at The House of Sixty Fathers, I was excited to read something else by DeJong. And though it is from…
I have shared before that I have two main, strong, stress response behaviors: shopping and reading. This is how I cope. Turns out, when I have real, deep grief with shock, I don’t do either. I also don’t eat, which is something that has never failed me in my entire life. It’s been a week…
It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way by Lysa TerKeurst was on my TBR because I pulled it from some pandemic book club suggestions I had compiled at the beginning of the year. I started a pandemic book club in January, and It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way was our second Christian reading, our…
Every once in a while, I pull an old favorite off the shelf and give it a read so that I can review it, fresh, for you. Till We Have Faces is one of my favorite books. Never heard of it? I’m sure you’ve heard of C. S. Lewis, the Christian apologist who also wrote…
I would give this one a 3.5 to 4 stars. I’m going back and forth. The idea behind Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan piqued my interest and then when I started reading it, I was a bit like “yawn” and then by the end I liked it again. What happened? I think the main thing…
If you’ve been around for more then a couple weeks here on The Starving Artist, you know that I love reading lists, especially thematic ones. I have lists for most of the major American holidays, at this point, but not Easter. That’s all about to change. Though, to be honest, this list isn’t that great.…
Wow. I really liked I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening) by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. And so far in my pandemic reading, this has been my favorite of a number of okay to great books. Like, even more than wanting to run out and build a bunker or even relax into peace…
It seems obvious that I would have read all of Jane Austen’s books. In reality, I’m not entirely sure I’ve read any of her books except Emma, at least until this week. (I am a fan of many of the movies, including the Sense and Sensibility from the 90s: one of my all-time favorites.) Now…
For the record, I would give this book 4.5 stars, but Goodreads makes me stick to one or the other, so… Also for the record, it remains difficult to rate certain books, because they might be important or edifying, even though literarily they might not rank at the top end. I have found myself in…
Well. It’s cute. It’s relevant. It might even be important. It didn’t shine like a beacon, for me. It has a few issues. It also has a few awards. The “new kid” of the graphic novel New Kid by Jerry Craft is Jordan, and he’s not new to his neighborhood or his house: he has…
Not a secret: I’m a Harry Potter fan. I read the new stuff as it comes out, including the Fantastic Beasts series, which, if you don’t know, is a five-book series of screen plays set in the Harry Potter world but seventy years before the stories we are familiar with. Which makes Dumbledore really old.…
I am a geek, pretty thoroughly. I like much of the geek canon, from LOTR to Star Wars, though I am more of an academic than a gamer. I’m not a gamer at all. But I have a lifelong love of learning which extends into most subjects, though my interest in some of them is…
