The following is impromptu flash fiction based on a writing prompt. I found the prompt at thinkwritten.com. The idea was to write about the weather outside my window. _______________ There is something I don’t like about this house: you can’t hear anything. I can look out the windows right now, at the impossibly tall and…
Well, I will have my first writing group Zoom on Wednesday. (Perhaps we were all enjoying being cut off from civilization for a while, but now we know we must connect in order to keep the group alive.) I have so much to report, though there are things I wish I could be saying. Here’s…
Since the next paragraph sounds derogatory, I’m going to give it to you straight here: I loved reading this book. Now… I did not LOL. (I might have smirked.) This book was not a mystery. It was only half-satire. And it cheated with the epistolary form (as many epistolary novels do). It might have been…
I really believe, this time, that this is the last reading list I am going to give you. It’s just that I recently read a short story collection (The Martian Chronicles, which snuck in there as a “novel,” just like Olive Kitteridge), and it got me thinking that I didn’t have any short stories on…
It is interesting, beginning any book. You don’t quite feel like you belong, you’re not sure if you’re speaking the right language. And where are you, anyways? What’s going on? Some books invite you in pretty quickly. Other books take a long time to acclimate to, sometimes so long that you give up on them…
I wasn’t going to make a best books list for philosophy or for classics, but then I received a comment on my last best books list (religion and Christianity) that got me thinking. Philosophy books and classics—genres that I have read a lot of—were included in the very first best books list that I did,…
I am aware that it is not the time of year to be reviewing a Christmas book. It’s not even Christmas in July! But I was looking over something on The Starving Artist and it reminded me of how I took my own recommendation and read A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, this past holiday…
There are some books below that are on the wrong list, but I think I got most of them in the right spot. As always, I haven’t read these books and am not recommending them, per se (though if it has a link attached to it, I have read it and you can follow that…
Not everyone reads plays, or at least after the required reading in high school and college. I do. (And more than Shakespeare, though I do love Shakespeare.) I enjoy them the same way I enjoy novels. Not that I read them like crazy, because I just don’t encounter them as much. Well, with this list…
Here are a few of the books that I remember loving in late-elementary school: A Wrinkle in Time, Caddie Woodlawn, The Wheel on the School, The Indian in the Cupboard, and The Borrowers. (Also the Babysitters Club, but we don’t need to pretend that’s great literature; just good, clean fun.) It occurs to me that…
I hadn’t even noticed, until now, that I had two Kate DiCamillo reviews lined up one right after another. This is another book that I read with my son, but then gave a 24-hour re-read in order to review it fairly. I remembered it, but not well enough. I think that one of the reasons…
I haven’t really jumped on the Kate DiCamillo train, though it seems everyone else has. I suppose that she has been on my radar, just out of sight, for several years. She just keeps going—getting movie deals, winning awards, and taking names. Her books boast the Newbery Medal (twice!, and also an honor and finalist),…
I don’t actually ever stop acquiring cookbooks. In the past year, I have averaged one per quarter. I have also re-possessed a few cookbooks that were in the garage, in the very last of the boxes to be unpacked (from moving three-and-a-half years ago). I have spent hours and hours reading these books, perusing them,…
I’m on a roll here with the blog. I have been meaning to “complete” the lists of Best Books for years, and I am almost there! I have two more lists left (religion and plays), but they are in sight, during this stay-at-home order. I am an avid list maker, and I will admit that…
It has only been two days since I reviewed a picture book, but this one was sitting on the list waiting to be reviewed, so we’re going to go ahead and do it. I found this book when I was looking for something specific. I have a nephew who is really, really into building and…
I am not going to review the whole series. Why? Because I read the first book and have decided that this series is really not meant for me. It is meant for someone, but it is not me, and I have so many other books that I am itching to read right now, but not…
I enjoy giving books to the young people in my life. It is a fantasy of mine to supply great libraries of curated books to all of my grandchildren. Yes, this is my fantasy. Toward this end, I have kept my eyes open for the best of all books for every age of person. This…
During the Stay-at-Home order, I have had the opportunity to watch more movies than I usually do. Still, it’s not a tremendous amount, as I have a lot of cooking, cleaning, schooling, and writing to do, not to mention projects here and there and everywhere. But that is the reason I have been able to…
The plan was always to update the Best Books list every ten years. That way, we can keep up to date on what we’re reading and not miss anything really exciting. Well, it’s been somewhere around ten years, and I thought I would make sure that the list goes all the way back to 2000.…
Well, this is embarrassing. I guess if I’m going to do the crime, I’ll have to do the time. Just kidding, sort of. The truth is this: one of those little library boxes appeared in my neighborhood last year, which made me very happy. I wander by it frequently, depositing and taking books, although mostly…
