I took the day off from work today so I could do most of the housecleaning I usually do on Saturdays. Tomorrow, I’m going to be READING! Or at least that’s my plan. Even if I don’t read a TON, it feels good to have a good amount of cleaning…
Book review: The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan
Description from the Random House website: Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can’t remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais’s school uniform is covered in…
Book review: The Spark: a Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett
{I’m adding this note on Feb. 7, 2024. Last month, one of my co-workers was talking about a series she’d watched called The Curious Case of Natalia Grace — I think that’s what it was, or something close to that. I didn’t listen too closely at first, but then the…
Want to read: Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon
I listened to a Guardian Books podcast today that included an interview with writer Andrew Solomon about his latest book, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity. I didn’t realize until today that it had won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle award for general non-fiction. …
Short thoughts on reading and non-reviewing
So I spent several weeks in October and November re-reading The Passage by Justin Cronin, then reading its sequel, The Twelve, which I enjoyed a great deal but didn’t LOVE the way I loved The Passage. Then I spent a few days reading the play The Intelligent Design of Jenny…
Late July journal updates
Wow, I knew I hadn’t posted in a while, but didn’t realize it’s been over two months — jeesh! And truthfully, this is sort of a faux-post, which I’m able to put up only because Ryan’s baseball coach decided not to go to the post-season awards night. Apparently Ryan was…
New second job, changes at first job, sports, clubs, & doctor appts.
I’ve found myself unexpectedly alone in the house with nothing I immediately need to do, so I’m writing this to let people know that, Yes, I’m still alive, but I really HAVE been too busy to get in touch and catch up. The calendars for April and May look like…
A Fraction of the Whole: SO FUNNY!
Of all the sentences in all the books I read in 2011, this sentence has to be one of my favorites: Until now, I’d never realized how much Dad resembled a dog being pushed unwillingly into a swimming pool. It’s from A Fraction of the Whole, the debut novel by Australian…
Connecting the thoughts, one book to the next
Over the past two weeks, I feel like I’ve entered a “perfect storm” of sorts, or at least a perfect reading storm, if such a thing exists. It took me far too long to finish reading my latest LibraryThing Early Reviewer book, entitled Manage Your Depression through Exercise, but very…
In love with Lola and the Boy Next Door
I was browsing through my library’s latest e-book additions, and saw Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. I knew nothing about the book, but I remembered book bloggers mentioning the title on Twitter a while ago, in tweet-sized bursts of excitement and anticipation. Figuring it would be…