Posted in Books, On Writing on Sep 25th, 2008 1 Comment »
Tonight we were at Third Place Books attending the release party for our friend, Jeffrey Overstreet’s second fantasy fiction novel, Cyndere’s Midnight.
Before he read an excerpt, he talked of beasts, and the appetite that drives them, and the things that transform them. “When we don’t understand the monster in ourselves,” he said, “we don’t [...]
Posted in Books, On Writing on Sep 8th, 2008 No Comments »
I met Jennette Fulda, author of Half-Assed, at the BlogHer conference in San Francisco. I attended a session titled Blog to Book, and she was one of the panelists, having converted her weight loss blog, Half of Me, into this memoir. She was lovely, and I was happy to buy a copy of her book, [...]
Posted in Books on Aug 20th, 2008 No Comments »
I took a break from fiction last month and read Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky. To explain my interest in this book, I should mention that Bryan once read me an entire keynote speech given by Clay Shirky, from his iPhone, while sitting on a bench as the kids played at the park.
Such [...]
Posted in Books on Jun 25th, 2008 6 Comments »
I finished two fiction books this month, which seems like a grand accomplishment considering all that divides my time. Atonement, by Ian McEwan, was chosen by a friend for our book club. It has three distinct sections, plus an epilogue, and most reviewers on Amazon had pretty strong feelings about which section they preferred.
Even [...]
Posted in Books on Jun 16th, 2008 2 Comments »
The first time I ever met my blogging friend, Heidi, in person, she brought me this book. And now that I’ve gotten to know her a little better, I can see why she liked it so much. It’s clever, it’s dry, and it’s ironic. I couldn’t help but imagine Heidi’s face when I read lines [...]
Posted in Books on May 19th, 2008 No Comments »
Harper Collins Publishing recently sent me the book, Mama Rock’s Rules: Ten Lessons for Raising a Household of Successful Children, by Rose Rock - mother to comedian Chris Rock. It’s a great, quick, entertaining read filled with simple wisdom, such as the benefits of eating dinner together as a family (”Feed Them and They Will [...]
Posted in Books on May 1st, 2008 4 Comments »
I’m sure there are many books on the market today for explaining this question to a preschooler, but I stumbled across an old one at my local library: Where Do Babies Come From? - written by Margaret Sheffield & illustrated by Sheila Bewley. It is beautifully illustrated with artful paintings - not at all [...]
Posted in Books on Apr 19th, 2008 2 Comments »
I just finished The Kitchen God’s Wife, by Amy Tan, for my book club. This was a great read, and rich with Chinese culture and history. The setting for most of the book is in China during the late 30’s and 40’s, as current-day Winnie tells her daughter about her life before coming to [...]
Posted in Books on Mar 5th, 2008 1 Comment »
This was a compelling read, but not at all delightful. It is sad, and tragic, and doesn’t really even have a hopeful ending. Yet for some reason, I still highly recommend it. Maybe because it’s not necessarily depressing, and there is humor to be found in it.
The Scheeres family adopted an African American [...]
Posted in Books on Feb 24th, 2008 3 Comments »
I finished Chaim Potok’s Davita’s Harp last weekend and loved it. I read it in less than a week, which is a big commitment to the 5% of free time I have left at the end of every day.
The entire book is from the perspective of Ilana Davita Chandal, who is around eight years [...]
Posted in Books on Feb 14th, 2008 1 Comment »
After Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral bombed and I quit reading in the middle of it, I switched over to a non-fiction book I had on my shelf: The Wonder of Girls, by Michael Gurien. This was a fascinating and informative book about the brain function and hormonal make-up of girls.
Did you know [...]
Posted in Books, Other Places to Find Me on Jan 30th, 2008 95 Comments »
It’s that time again, the time in which I give something away. For free. And it’s all her fault.
Remember the last time I gave something away for free? It was awesome. It was like a party on This Pile with all those comments.
Here’s your second chance if you missed all the hoopla before - you’re [...]
Posted in Books on Jan 9th, 2008 6 Comments »
So what do you do when a book you are reading is terrible?
I’ve never walked out of the theater in the middle of a movie, and I quit watching only one rented movie that I can remember (for the record, I would have never picked Lethal Weapon IV, had it been up to me). [...]
Posted in Books on Dec 31st, 2007 1 Comment »
One of my best friends thought I would like All is Vanity, by Christina Schwartz. She told me it was about an aspiring writer who rips off her friend’s life and creates a novel out of it.
I wondered if my friend was feeling…concerned?
The author developed the character, Margaret, as an over achieving, self-centered egotist - [...]
Posted in Books on Dec 30th, 2007 1 Comment »
Though To Own A Dragon is written by a man for other fatherless men, this book appeals to the human race. I think we are all “fatherless” in some way, in that our parents are not capable of being perfect or giving us everything we need emotionally. We all missed out on something important growing [...]