I first placed Charles Lamb’s Essays of Elia on my TBR list because I read about him in Anne Fadiman’s wonderful book of personal essays, At Large and At Small. (Let me just put in a plug here: I would read Anne Fadiman’s rewrite of the telephone book, A-D. I would read her careful chemical [...]
Archive for September, 2008
Essays of Elia
Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction on September 28, 2008 | 4 Comments »
The White Tiger
Posted in Contemporary, Fiction on September 28, 2008 | 6 Comments »
Balram Hawai, the narrator of The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, sees himself as an important man, so important that when he hears that the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is planning a visit to Bangalore, he decides that he must write to him and share the real story of entrepreneurship in India. This book is [...]
The Secret Scripture
Posted in Fiction on September 23, 2008 | 8 Comments »
I love stories about memory—whether memory is reliable and whether we can really know what the truth is. So The Secret Scripture piqued my interest from the first moment I heard about it. When it made the Booker shortlist, I knew I had to move it to the top of my TBR list.
The book tells [...]
Touchstone
Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mysteries on September 22, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Laurie R. King stands alongside Ruth Rendell as one of my favorite mystery writers working today. Whenever a new book in her Mary Russell series (with Sherlock Holmes) comes out, I make a point of reading it as soon as possible. Although her stand-alone mysteries are nearly as wonderful as the Russell books, I haven’t sought [...]
No Country for Old Men (Audio)
Posted in Audiobooks, Fiction on September 20, 2008 | 1 Comment »
One of my favorite audiobooks ever is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It was riveting and horrifying and heart-breaking and almost everything I want in a book (well, except for laughs). After Jenny mentioned that she really enjoyed listening to All the Pretty Horses, I decided that it McCarthy’s style might translate particularly well to [...]
“What Should I Read in October?” Giveaway
Posted in Giveaways on September 18, 2008 | 46 Comments »
I can’t pass a book sale, a giveaway, or a book swapping site without acquiring one, two, or twenty new books, and I am trying to read through the huge collection of unread books I’ve amassed in recent years. These monthly giveaways help me clear my shelves while giving you a chance to choose your own giveaway prize!
Here’s how to [...]
Stolen Innocence
Posted in Contemporary, Memoir, Nonfiction on September 17, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I rarely read “ripped from the headline” memoirs of people’s harrowing life experiences. It’s just not my thing. If I want a shocking true story, I’m more likely to turn to a third-person accounts (Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer) or first-person accounts that happen to be by accomplished writers (Lucky by Alice Sebold). So Stolen [...]
The Death of the Heart
Posted in Fiction on September 16, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I chose this book completely by accident. (Can I even say I chose it, in that case?) I’d heard many good things about Sarah Bower’s historical novels Needle in the Blood and Book of Love, and decided one day that I’d pick one up at the library. I hadn’t brought my list with me, so [...]
The Lady Elizabeth
Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction on September 15, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Regular readers of this blog will know that I’ve been immersing myself in the Tudors recently. In the past year or so, I’ve read three novels by Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir’s Children of Henry VIII. My favorite piece of Tudor fiction is Alison Weir’s novel Innocent Traitor, which chronicles the life of Lady Jane Grey, [...]
The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Audio)
Posted in Audiobooks, Food, Nonfiction on September 12, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Jenny wrote an excellent review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma back in June. Go read it now for some background on this fascinating, scary—and potentially life-changing—book. Now that I’ve finished listening to the audio book, I can say that heartily concur with her.
Since Jenny has covered the highlights of the book so well already, I hope you all [...]
