Hello and happy Sunday! I hope our U.S. readers are enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday and that everyone else is just having a lovely weekend. I’ve had family visiting all weekend and therefore haven’t gotten much time for reading and blogging, but I’m hoping to catch up a bit this afternoon. In the meantime, here are a handful of reviews and other bookish writing that caught my eye over the past month. Enjoy!
-
“The $60,000 Dog”: Animal attractionA master memoirist on the human-beast connection, from pampered pets and hated pests to girls and their horses Topics: Animals, Books, dogs, Horses, Lauren Slater, Memoir, nature, Our Picks: Books, What to Read, Entertainment News To judge by recent publishing trends, the great proliferation of authors these days can be attributed to the animals – sometimes cats, occasionally the odd duck, but mostly dogs, and badly behaved ones at that – who go around saving their lives.0
likes·
0
comments -
Green Piece-Barbara Kingsolver’s Eco ObsessionsIN 2004, AFTER LIVING for two decades in the parched landscape of Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver returned to verdant Appalachia, her birthplace and ancestral home. A significant factor behind the move was the family’s desire to live near their food sources, something they’d been denied in the “space station”-like atmosphere of the Arizona desert.0
likes·
0
comments -
Citizen Reader: Here’s the problem with True Crime.
There’s just no way to say to anyone: “Hey, I just read this unbelievably good book about Jeffrey Dahmer.”* The book could indeed be very good. But once you insert ” Jeffrey Dahmer” into any sentence, let’s face it, the gut reaction “ick factor” is going to scare a lot of people away.0
likes·
0
comments -
Barbara Kingsolver-when she is good, she is very, very good and when she is bad she is horrid. I adore her novels The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, and The Poisonwood Bible. I have read and loved all her non-fiction, without exception-even Animal, Vegetable, Miracle which some people found too over-the-top with its recommendations about growing…0
likes·
0
comments -
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby [audiobook]Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby Narrated by Jennifer Wiltsie, Ben Miles, and Bill Irwin Penguin Audio, 2009 Buy: Amazon | Bookdepository * Imagine a girl called Iris listening to this on her walk to the faculty and back. Then imagine a huge smile on her face.0
likes·
0
comments -
Two-Part Invention – Madeleine L’EngleI cannot remember the last book that made me cry as much as Two-Part Invention by Madeleine L’Engle and I mean that as the highest form of praise. Last month, Lisa posted a review of The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L’Engle, a book I had never heard of before.0
likes·
0
comments -
Ready When You Are, C.B.: Murder in Memoriam by Didier Daeninckx
On October 17, 1961, thousands of Algerians took to the streets of Paris in a peaceful demonstration against a curfew that had been imposed only on them. At the time, Algeria was engaged in a struggle for Independence from France which had long held the nation as a colony.0
likes·
0
comments
Thanks, I enjoyed my Thanksgiving holiday.
Wonderful!
I love the other review of Flight Behavior calling Ovid Byron’s name “another brick-to-the-skull metaphor,” but I don’t agree. Ovid=metamorphosis is pretty general, and there’s none of the sexual grandstanding of the Romantic poet.
Thanks for including my review! Perhaps I was just in the mood for this particular sermon, and so it didn’t strike me as preachy.
I enjoy contrasting perspectives about novels I’m uncertain about, and your review and the TNR one give me a pretty good idea of what to expect if I read Flight Behavior. As I think I mentioned on your post, my feelings about Kingsolver’s work is mixed and slightly skews to the negative, but I’m interested in the class angle in this book.
And the name Ovid Byron seems pretty unsubtle to me, like it has to mean something because it draws such attention to itself. But the name Byron does seem to suggest extreme sexual prowess, so who knows what Kingsolver was getting at. Perhaps she just wanted a poetic-sounding name.
love your way of sharing recent links you enjoyed! I really enjoyed the first of L’Engle memoir…and I have the other three on my shelf, but I have not read them yet!
I’m trying to do this once a month or so–with a focus on book reviews, since those get less attention than topical posts. I know how much I love it when people share my posts, so I wanted to spread the love.