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…
Well, I assigned The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where You Live by William Hirsch AIA (I think that has something to do with architecture) to my Pandemic Book Club, as the alternative book for February. (The main book—which I’ll review soon—is about stress and health.) I thought that since…
It is only February, but the first book that put me behind schedule to read 102 books this year was Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. It’s a classic. I had always intended on reading it. And when Lyddie referenced it over and over in my middle grades Language Arts class, I decided to embrace the…
I just lurve this book. Not a line Stephen King would condone, but I’m stickin’ to my guns. (Another phrase he would edit out because it’s cliché.) Then again, this is a blog, where I embrace the conversational and modern tone. On Writing has been on my Favorites list since my first days with this…
The books we’ve been reading for middle school literature lately (I teach a co-op class) have been so short that the students have actually asked for more reading suggestions. Not all of the students, but still. After Animal Farm and then War Horse, we landed on another super-short novel (which we’re not going to call…
This is an old review, which has been sitting at the bottom of my next-up feed for a long time. I don’t really know how it got there or why I kept it there, but it was probably read during a dry period, perhaps when I was sick or on vacation. At any rate, a…
Okay, whatever you do, do not read this book and then watch the book trailer. It will make you so very sad that since its crazy popularity in 2014 and its release to be adapted, there has not been a movie made. The book trailer is so good. It doesn’t help that I love that…
This book was not what I expected, though if I had seen the movie that came out several years ago, I wouldn’t have been surprised. To be frank, War Horse sounds like a book I would not enjoy, but it was on the required reading list for the middle schoolers I teach this year, so…
Let’s just establish, right away, that though I gave Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky only three stars out of five (I think, generously), I will still be recommending it. Sometimes books are important for a reason, but maybe they’re not the world’s best book. They fill a void. And until that niche…
I have read Life of Pi a couple of times and I like it. I have reasons, and I’ll give them to you in a sec. I also always leave it a little disappointed. I think my main beef with this book is that Yann Martel tried too hard to sell us his perceived moral.…
