Do you like to read books? I love them. How about movies? Reviews have been the bread and butter of this site since the beginning. Before I made this blog a personal journal space during COVID, I used it to write reviews for such books as Tara Westover’s Educated and Ruth Wariner’s The Sound of Gravel.
Stories are the *best* place to lose yourself. When I was still in grade school, I went with the Boxcar Children and The Black Stallion and Pippi Longstocking to wonderful places I could never go without reading.
Later, when I went to college, I meant to study computer science, because that was considered a smart field. But I loved books still. Literature carried me. English became my field, and we read books and wrote about them and I loved every second.
I discovered that writing about books could be something to share with others. While I’ve spent inordinate amounts of time writing about feelings, experiences, ideas … I always do a few book reviews.
I think of my fellow readers when I write about books and movies. How will *they* respond to these stories? What will they understand when they come to know these books?
I spend a lot of time reading on the web these days, about SEO and blogging and teaching. But no time I spend reading on the web can compare with reading real books. There’s something about the paper page. How it sounds when you turn it. Propping a book up to read while you’re eating. Marking a phrase to remember.
Are you transported by stories too? I hope you’ll consider a comment on the reviews pages if something strikes you as interesting. Reading takes you places, yes indeed. I hope you will enjoy these reviews and perhaps follow me in the journeys I took with these texts.
Being Over 60 Being over 60 isn’t easy, even when you’re Boy George. Maybe I should say, especially when you are. But I have to say, having finished his memoir Karma, that he builds up your optimism for living life fully, for being true to your impulses, even the bad ones, and to sticking around […]
Book Review: Boy George’s Karma Read More »
A Reflection on the Famous “Banned Book” The book, are you there God, it’s me, Margaret, has name recognition. It might be said to be an icon to my generation. Published in 1970, the book details the struggles of one 11 year old girl, Margaret Simon, who faces sixth grade and puberty as she moves
Are You There God It’s Me Margaret – Review Read More »
Go past the shocking opening of the Barbie Movie, which has a laughing Barbie towering like a Greek goddess over a bunch of drab five year old girls smashing their baby dolls. (The scene is a reprise of 2001, a Space Odyssey, which might be a bit confusing.) Travel past to zoom in on Barbies
Barbie Movie: 9 Clues to the Meaning of Life Read More »
What I’ve been reading, generally stuff I’ve read this year, which was interesting enough to put down for future reference. And which is immediately available online: Blogs Mr Money Mustache — Who can help but be impressed when someone tells you you can retire in nine years flat, just by spending wisely and saving the
What I’ve Been Reading Read More »
Changing the way you think is tough. Brianna Weist’s 101 Essays that Will Change the Way You Think will help you re-frame your worldview and your relationships. A couple weeks past, this book showed up at my doorstep. No doubt a helpful friend wanted to give me a chance to change the way I think.
Review of Brianna Weist’s 101 Essays… Read More »
I don’t often read books about Being a Writer. Because you know I’m above all that, ha ha ha. At least I used to think I was. But Bird by Bird is famous among writers, a book that everyone at writer’s group has heard of. Of course I didn’t rush out to read it. Because
Review: BIRD BY BIRD. And thank You, Anne Lamott. Read More »
I have to admit that though I loved this book, which concerns the sudden death of Didion’s husband, John Dunne, after nearly 40 years of marriage, I did not completely believe it. That is perhaps my central critique of Didion’s masterwork and of the Didion magical thinking theme. Her claims about her marriage, her claims
Book Review: Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking Read More »
The Sound of Gravel, Flatiron Books, 2015. It’s dark outside and in the beginning of The Sound of Gravel. The polygamous cult in which Wariner is raised, 200 miles south of Juarez, Mexico, is a land of rural beauty and grinding poverty. Living off the land is not exactly working for the 30-odd families of
Book Review: Memoir: Ruth Wariner gives us a family portrait of polygamy Read More »
I almost didn’t go to see the new Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. The DJ said on the radio at the time. “As for a Bohemian Rhapsody review … well, the reviews are mixed.” After watching it, and being thoroughly moved, especially by the second half of the movie, I went back. I re-read the iffy
I finished Educated by Tara Westover and I enjoyed every minute of it, though the story’s villains — Westover’s parents and her brother Shawn — were unpleasant in the extreme, and slippery to the end. The story, which at the outset appears to treat mainly of the academic success of a child of radical unschooler
Book Review: Educated by Tara Westover Read More »
