If you have been following this blog for forever, then you should know what NaNoWriMo is. If you haven’t, you may anyhow, but my experience has been a lot of blank stares where I mention it. If you are a writer and don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, then it is time I introduced you. NaNoWriMo…
I seem to be on a roll with the dystopian fiction. It might have something to do with reading short fiction? It seems like the rate of dystopian fiction among novellas is on the high side. Or this is all just a coincidence. Well, whatever the reason, I landed on Fahrenheit 451 for my very…
I should have read this book a really long time ago. Someone whom I admire and love gave it to me with a meaningful inscription in the front, telling me how much it has meant to them. I was younger then, and perhaps a lot less mature. Maybe I wouldn’t even have been able to…
I don’t know what made me think that this was a Book a Day book. I mean, it’s got a normal amount of writing on every normal-sized page, and weighs in at 236 pages. This is not on par with all the other books I pulled. Still, it was in the pile and I just…
(Bit slow on the up-swing, I know. I read this book as quickly as I could get my hands on a decently-priced copy, but I missed it in reviews. Here it is.) I am a Potter fan. I mean, who isn’t? It was a whiplash ride from passively observing the mania to, well, becoming manic,…
When I was fresh from college and could read whatever the heck I wanted all the time, somehow I picked up a copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. The heft of it was a bit daunting, but I just about ate it up (around the same time I also devoured The Stand.) It was so…
This book haunts me. It has taken me nearly two years to write the review (can it be?!?). It is one of the rare occasions when I am reviewing a book I do not own, so every time I see it in the book store I have this dilemma over buying a book I won’t…
Another day, another book. Graphic novels take a remarkably short time to devour, which is why I don’t return to them very often. The pacing is not what I prefer. However, I do enjoy the occasional graphic novel, if only for reveling in its artistic expression. I have read Anne of Green Gables (L. M.…
As mentioned before, I grabbed a few graphic novels from the library to add to the Book-a-Days, but they are not necessarily the ones from the TBR. Then again, I was bound to eventually read this Raina Telgemeier as well as the other review you have coming, Anne of Green Gables: a Graphic Novel. I…
I know I’m always claiming I started a book for high school reading but never finished it. Thanks to untreated ADHD and an uncanny ability to predict stories, this is largely true. But I must have read some of these books in order to ace AP English, right? Unknown. What I do know is that…
I have been surprised just how many books I already owned have surprised me in the past several weeks. Yes, I meant that sentence to read that way, but now it strikes me as awkward. Ah, well. Since I started Book a Day (which would be going much better if I didn’t keep misplacing the…
I apologize if you saw this review and clicked on it because you thought, Look at that beautiful cover, and “falling cloudberries?” Poetry? Literary fiction? That sounds super intriguing. Because this is not a novel, and since no one can read the cute-yet-obnoxious font that was chosen for the subtitle, you didn’t know that the…
I just had no idea what was coming, when I picked up this book. Nothing at all. (Note: I actually read this before The Bridge of San Luis Rey, but when I took my week off, I forgot to review it.) What would you think if you were about to read The Pearl, by John…
In case you noticed, it has been over a week since my last Book a Day post. That is because I took a week off to renovate the school room. Since the school room is part of the dining room and kitchen, at the heart of our home, I thought it would be best to…
In our home school (officially Avonlea-Potter Academy), we have a library day for history, about once per week. This week, my son had little to no interest in scanning the books about the Byzantine Empire and we ended up in the graphic novel section. I have been wanting, for years, to read more graphic novels,…
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Read a pillar of great European literature in the last two days… I actually read this book the first time through in college. With my first foot in the door at my alma mater, I was enrolled in a freshman prerequisite which explored a few major, modern worldviews. This book–despite the author’s…
When I saw this movie with my kids, a few years ago, I was really expecting something like The Spiderwick Chronicles or The Chronicles of Narnia. Perhaps the absence of “Chronicles” in the title should have been a sign, but this book (and movie) are nothing like either of those books/series. Terabithia–despite its fanciful name–is not…
I am in the middle of a blog-blast, reading a book a day (read: one-two days) and blogging about the books. I took a day off because I was using up my whole evening to attend a local reading, and I figured that had to count for something. Plus, I couldn’t reach my house without…
This book, as you can probably tell by its title, is deeply religious. (Although some people would argue with that word, religious, we’re going to stick with it.) If you have no interest in Christianity, it probably won’t interest you, however, it is a quick read that can inspire peace, devotion, and discipline, even in…
This book–which is really a play–could write the book on 1970s theater. After all, it won the Pulitzer. But more than that, it just reeks of 1970s theater coolness, and I do mean that “in a good way.” If you enjoy reading plays, especially plays from around that time period, you–well, you’ve probably already read…
the starving artist 