2009 was a great reading year for me! I finished 134 books! That has to be a record for me, at least since I finished school! I was pretty stingy with the five-star ratings this year, so I think I’ll go ahead and list them all. I think it’s funny that I don’t read that […]
The lass is the last child in a family of nine and the fourth unwanted girl. She is so unwanted that her mother doesn’t even bother to name her. When a polar bear comes crashing through the door one night and asks her to live with him in his castle for a while, she agrees […]
“I should have thought it obvious,” I said impatiently, though even at that age I was aware that such things were not obvious to the majority of people. “I see paint on your pocket-handkerchief, and traces on your fingers where you wiped it away. The only reason to mark bees that I can think of […]
I should have started this meme, hosted by J. Kaye, last week, when I read so many books while the power was out. This week I’ve been trying to catch up with blog stuff and on GoodReads, and then there was Christmas, so I haven’t gotten much read. Finished: Madapple by Christina Meldrum (review up tonight, […]
On a beautiful July evening, nine-year-old Katie Mackey disappears on her way to the library. And our hearts break. I just don’t know where to start. It’s hard not to compare this to Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, but there’s a huge difference. As I remember it, The Lovely Bones dealt with the family’s grieving […]
Weezie Foley is back and better than ever. She’s trying her best to win Savannah’s historic district decorating contest, but the couple across the street are throwing tons of money into their efforts. To add to her troubles, her boyfriend Daniel always becomes decidedly Grinch-like at Christmas, and she just can’t get him into the […]
We first meet Crystal Spangler when she’s a dreamy twelve-year-old Virginia mountain girl, in the summer before she begins high school. We follow her as her dreaminess leads her to look for meaning, or for herself, in all the wrong places. I adore Lee Smith’s work. She writes about the mountains of Virginia. I’m in […]
This week’s question at Booking Through Thursday is Given the choice, which do you prefer? Real history? Or historical fiction? (Assume, for the purposes of this discussion that they are equally well-written and engaging.) I’m a dedicated fiction reader, so it’s almost impossible for me to get past my belief that non-fiction is dry and […]
Strange things start happening around best friends Zanna and Deeba. A fox appears on the edge of the playground, watching Zanna. They come across graffiti saying “Zanna For Ever!” A woman they don’t know approaches Zanna in a café and tells her what an honor it is to meet her. It all culminates one night […]
I know all of you who live farther north than I do are going to laugh at this, but I AM SICK OF SNOW. We had 14 inches dropped on us over Friday and Saturday and we were all but shut down. We used to get decent 3-4″ snows pretty regularly here in the mountains […]
I can’t even really say what this is about without giving anything away. Let’s just say that the stupidest angel’s mission to create a Christmas miracle goes horribly, hilariously awry in ways that only Christopher Moore could write about. This wasn’t quite as funny as I expected it to be, but I think since reading […]