RSS Feed- My guest Beth and Gone With The Wind
- Fairy tales and retold fables
- A Confusion of Princes
- The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict
- The Fault in Our Stars
- The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
- How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming
- The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
- Books I’ve devoured
- For the love of books
17Aug2012
The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict
I have reviewed every single book in Trenton Lee Stewart's series, The Mysterious Benedict Society. That seems like overkill, really, but in this case, I don't care. Often I won't bother to review later books in a series if I loved or hated them equal to the original. What seems to happen with Stewart's books is that I love them just so much that I can't help but want to make people read the
Keep readingView Comments (6)21Feb2012
Books I’ve devoured
I spent most of the last few months of 2011 in a book funk, which carried over into 2012 for the month of January. I just couldn't seem to find anything to catch my interest for longer than a few minutes at a time. Ideally, a book should be so good that I can't fall asleep at night or I sneak it into my lap while helping my kids practice the piano. During a period I've decided to call The Gr
Keep readingView Comments (16)26Aug2011
A new appreciation for Ellen Raskin
When I was in the fifth grade, I read Ellen Raskin's Figgs and Phantoms. It stood out to me as a breath of fresh air, but I honestly couldn't tell you what it was about except thinking it was funny -- both in the odd and the ha-ha sense. Now that I've read two more of Raskin's novels, I am convinced that I probably didn't get as much out of Figgs as I should have or it would have been more mem
Keep readingLeave a Comment18Jul2011
Three series I can’t get enough of
It's been awfully quiet on the RHE front lately, thanks to big moves for both of our families. But even though life's chaos has gotten in the way of blogging, I have been doing a lot of fun summer reading. And I'm betting that after long days spent unpacking, Jenny has likely managed to sneak in some time late at night with a good book. Someday, maybe we'll get to hear what has kept her sane
Keep readingView Comments (5)02Jun2011
5 reviews in 5 minutes
Note to self: Don't ever make a commitment to be more diligent in writing reviews. That will just guarantee that life will increase in pace until it becomes completely frenetic and you can barely see straight. Having recently just made a big out-of-state move, I am currently despairing that I will ever get back into any routine. So I'm going to try something different for this post. Revie
Keep readingView Comments (3)18Aug2010
Feeding my Mary Russell obsession
Yes, I'll admit it. I'm addicted. You're going to get tired of hearing me talk about Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series long before I get tired of reading them. It's hard to resist the allure of intelligent, complex characters in what promises to be an entertaining mystery. So while I do try to read other things, every so often I have to indulge and pick up the next few installments. Recent
Keep readingLeave a Comment02Jul2010
The delightful Lord Peter Wimsey
You know how Picasso had a Blue Period? June could be called my "Post-WWI era English Mystery Period". It's purely coincidental, but last month I read mysteries from three different authors that all happen to take place in England in the 1920's. I was recently introduced to Dorothy L. Sayers and her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. Unlike the two contemporary authors I've been reading, Sayers
Keep readingView Comments (2)30Jun2010
Co-review: The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag
Caren and I both loved Alan Bradley's book The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and decided, since we're on a sequels kick for co-reviews these days, that we would do one for his next book. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag is another tale of mystery and murder with Flavia de Luce, chemist, poisons expert, detective, adventurer, clever liar, and not-quite-eleven-year-old. This time s
Keep readingView Comments (2)09Jun2010
Maisie Dobbs
I just finished a novel for my book group featuring a young woman in England in the early 1900s who is notable for her intelligence and keen powers of observation. She attends university, grows to adulthood during WWI, and is mentored by a much older gentleman with whom she solves cases and learns to be a private detective. Sound familiar? That's what I thought too, but it was not a Mary Rus
Keep readingView Comments (1)16Apr2010
Taking a trip with Mary Russell
I recently spent a couple of weeks out of town, and had a whole stack of library books to choose from to keep me company while traveling. Some I'd picked up out of idle curiosity; some I checked out because I felt like I should read them, not because I really wanted to; and a few I was genuinely excited about. Guess which ones actually got read while I was away. What can I say?&n
Keep readingView Comments (1)