I’ve been distracted lately. Instead of writing reviews, I sit down at my computer and read The Mary Sue, or update my Goodreads lists, or obsessively check my hold lists on Overdrive. These are things that should take a few minutes, but somehow keep me from the business of writing blog posts and keeping my…
January was a pretty quiet month, with lots of time for reading. I spent a lot of time working on one of my blogging resolutions, which is to learn how to improve the look of my blog. I signed up for PicMonkey, changed my blog theme, learned a bit about code, and researched self-hosting. I…
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is Best Books of 2017. I know I’m a big geek, but I love making end-of-year Best-Of lists. Here are my favorite books read this year; they may not have been published this year, although most are pretty recent. I always appreciate a book…
I love this series, which is about a real-life woman in the 1910’s who was one of the first female deputy sheriffs. Amy Stewart builds the novels in this series around actual people and events and she ends each one with a description of her research. If you haven’t read the series, but like historical…
I really enjoy Victorian mysteries, so was pleased to accept a copy of this book from the author. I should note first off that this is the third book in the D.S. Billings Victorian Mystery series, and I much prefer to read a series in order, but was willing to read Book 3 on the…
My husband loves podcasts, and often recommends them. My usual response is that I’d much rather read than listen, and that’s true. I’m much more visual than auditory, and while my husband spends an hour and a half driving to work each day, I spend 2 hours sitting on trains and buses. Still, there are…
This is a really thoughtful, moving novel about a Chinese family that is torn apart in the United States. Peilan grows up in China in a small village but dreams of exploring the world, so she travels to New York for factory work at better wages. She has Deming while still very young herself, and…
This week’s Top Ten topic, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is books that are unique. What makes a book unique? Some books are told in a unique way, like Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life or David Nicholls’ One Day. Some books have spawned lots of copies, but were original when first published (Harry…
My reading was thematic this month. I started with 1984 and then moved to a book about rural America, Strangers in Their Own Land. I read Diane Guerrero’s book about her parents’ immigration to America and their deportation back to Columbia. I read The Daily Show, which turned out to be as much about U.S.…
This week’s Top Ten topic, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is books on my spring To Be Read list. Right now this list is about a mile long, and I’m in the middle of three books at once. What’s the point of a TBR list? For me it’s a way to organize my…
I’ve looked at graphic novels before, but never really sat down and read one. I figured it’s a very different way of reading. Your eyes have to jump around all over the place, and it’s hard to know what order to read things in. I suppose I like the calm repetition of reading lines across the…
Cathy from 746 Books has started a series called The Books that Built the Blogger, and the idea is to talk about the books that have most influenced you. I spent a few days thinking, but these are ones that immediately came to mind. Childhood: The Oz series by L. Frank Baum Recently I wrote…
The Book Stop 