It’s poetry month! And as a result, I will be reading some poetry. Funnily enough, the first book of poetry I read was not poetry at all. It was flash fiction. It is such a slim volume, and I bought it at the same time as these other books of poetry on my shelf (about…
I was looking at the line of April TBR book spines on my shelf last night, thinking about how good they all looked and wondering how many of them will disappoint me. I’ll say it yet again: I wanted to like Beasts of Prey (Beasts of Prey #1) by Ayana Gray. For a little while…
I have been reading at least one picture book per month, this year. I love picture books. I sometimes feel like that’s cheating, to read a children’s book, but there is no cheating. I am making this up. I read Doug Salati’s Hot Dog because it won the Caldecott and Ezra Jack Keats awards a…
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic series has long been touted in various places as one of the best comics/graphic novel series out there. I have meant to read it for a while and finally snagged the first one because I mention it in the novel I am writing. As with some of Gaiman’s other works I…
I received Cute Foods Around the World from Cupkin as an ARC, but it has been quite some time. I took it with the family on a road trip in the summer to check it out, but it has been quite some time since then, as well. Better late than never? Hopefully for the Creative…
There is a new version of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It has an additional 200 recipes and was published in 2014. However, I got my very beat-up copy in 2001 (when it was shiny and new), so this is a review using the old version, but…
I have been recommending The Vegetarian by Han Kang at the bookshop. The thing is, I recommend books sometimes that I didn’t really enjoy reading, because I understand that not every reader is me. If there is a connection there… I will recommend it. But the truth is that I have mixed feelings about The…
Is there a hotter book than James by Percival Everett? Sure, the popularity is waning by now, but there’s still no paperback, and we still keep it on the front table in a tall stack at the bookshop because even a year later, James is selling. It’s being read. People are loving it. And the…
Do I need to give a synopsis for And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie? It’s a classic. Well, I will anyhow. Ten people across England get an alluring message from a Mr. and Mrs. Owen asking them to come to an isolated island off the coast of Devon. After they arrive, a disembodied…
Comedy is really social, maybe even socio-political. Which is why a book like Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis hasn’t aged well. It’s funny (I can see that, or at least some of that), but the British academic satire from the 50s was mostly beyond me, at least emotionally. There were a few scenes that I…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
the starving artist 