In The Year of the Flood, Atwood does something unusual: she writes a book that’s set in the same time and place as her previous book, Oryx and Crake, but from the perspectives of different characters (see my review here). In an interview on Amazon, she says that one reason for this was to address…
Review: Mary Ann in Autumn by Armistead Maupin
I think if this book hadn’t received a good review I wouldn’t have bought it. Maupin’s recent books haven’t done much for me, and Mouse, Brian, Anna, and even Mary Ann are like old friends. Better to reread the old books again and again than change them with a not-so-good update. Happily, I think Maupin…
The Best Books I Read in 2010, and a few other lists
Farewell 2010! The folks over at The Broke and the Bookish are posting their Top Ten Reads of 2010, and as it’s the end of the year it seemed a good time to figure out which books were my favorites. Picking ten was tough, so I also narrowed it down to books published in 2010. These…
A Book (Series) That Changed My Life
First off, here’s wishing those of you who celebrate Christmas, a very merry Christmas! My husband and I are off today to sunny warm Southern California. Gifts are bought, I have the next 9 days off work, and I’m looking forward to some days of doing not much at all. Christmas is a bit of…
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Normally, if I don’t understand a book I’m not going to enjoy it. I also don’t like writing that’s weird for the sake of being weird. Slaughterhouse Five was different. It’s funny and strange and tragic and an easy read, all at the same time. Slaughterhouse Five is at first told from the point of…
Review: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
It’s freezing outside and winter-cold-season inside. The only good thing I can say about that is I’ve had LOTS of time to read lately. This year’s ugly winter cold has meant slowing waaayyy down. And the thirty degree weather and my recently-repaired fireplace means I’m staying in every chance I get. So aside from the…
Review: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
This book, which was included in the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books of 2010, is Julie Orringer’s first novel, and as she describes in the credits, it is written as a tribute to her grandparents and great uncle and aunt. This book is a sweeping story that covers World War II from…
On the last night of Hanukkah…
As Hanukkah comes to a close, I want to wish everyone out there a happy end-of-Hanukkah and a very happy holiday season. It’s been a busy couple of weeks so I haven’t been blogging much. Last week my sister visited with her husband and my two nieces (ages three and five), which was great fun…
Can something be a “modern-day classic”?
This week’s Literary Blog Hop asks the question: when is a contemporary book a classic? And what modern book do I think will be a classic? I’m going to punt on this one and say the obvious – we just don’t know. A classic is a book that people are reading and finding relevant to…
Best Fiction of 2010
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year (except for the cold) and yesterday was a particularly nice day – I got to stay close to home, had dinner with my dad, talked to most of my family and my husband’s family, relaxed and watched…
Odds and Ends, and Harry Potter
Today I’m just posting some odds and ends as I work on my next review. Once I finish that one, I’ll actually be caught up, which I don’t think has happened since I started this blog. Kindle in the news: An interesting piece of Kindle news recently was Amazon’s announcement that Kindle will soon allow…
Literary Blog Hop: Literary Nonfiction
This week’s Literary Blog Hop, sponsored by the Blue Bookcase, asks: Can nonfiction be literary? Of course it can, but it’s harder to define. I don’t read much nonfiction but maybe this is the rough equivalent of calling a work of science fiction literary (as discussed in a recent post). In other words, we assume…
The Book Stop 