Category: Reading
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Reading with focus, or the annual theme read…
This year, for the first time, I tried reading around a theme or focus. The focus I picked was mysteries, a genre I have not paid much attention to since I devoured them as a youngster. To tell the truth, I really didn’t get focused until around August, so most of my reading was random…
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How to decide what to read next…
Over on that most wonderful bookish online community, LibraryThing, entire groups and challenges are dedicated to helping us pick what to read next from the gigantic wishlist of everything we’ve ever wanted to read. My favorite way is to join in on theme challenges, selecting a book from a randomly proposed theme like “books with…
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12 Banned Books to Read
This is the week that we celebrate books that have been banned or challenged. Usually, the books are banned from school libraries or from being taught in school. The reasons given seem valid–sexual content, dirty language, racism–but dig a little deeper and you’ll generally find that the true reason is that these books seem dangerous.…
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Books by women: A reading list
In a recent post, I discussed trying to read books written by women. This led me to consider which women authors I would recommend, and I came up with a list of books by women that I think are entertaining and enlightening reads. Of course, I am not the only person to have come up…
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How to consciously read books written by women…
Before I started journaling my reading, in 2001, I just read whatever caught my eye at the bookstore without any sort of plan whatsoever. Over the decade since I started journaling, I’ve gradually become more purposeful in my reading, and if I look back over my journals (now on LibraryThing), I can see a steady…
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Book List: Big Books for Summer
Settle into your summer reading with one of these epic novels. Summer is the perfect time to wade into a really big book. You know the books I mean, the kind that can double as a door stopper for a recalcitrant screen door or a small table to hold your drink on the beach. Most…
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My Review of The Kids Will Be Fine by Daisy Waugh
The Kids Will Be Fine: Guilt-Free Motherhood for Thoroughly Modern Women by Daisy Waugh I just received this book and started reading it. It has already won me over by liberal use of terms like “bullshit” and “piss,” the assertion–one that I have always agreed with–that in this modern age there is no reason in…
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Ah, nostalgia! Revisiting childhood reads…
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been revisiting favorite authors from my childhood, just rereading one or two of their best novels. I read a lot of mysteries back then, but I’ve fallen off in my mystery reading since. First, I reread some Agatha Christies: And Then There Were None and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd:…
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Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis–Thoughts
It seems like many of us avid readers have a fascination with what, and how much, some of our favorite authors could drink. There have been some wonderful love letters written to alcohol by some of our greatest literary talents. Kingsley Amis was a prodigious drinker. We might almost call him a professional. His words…
Shannon Turlington 