Jane Yolen is one of those authors I feel I should love more than I do. I have enjoyed her books, some of them quite a bit, and she wrote me and my sister a terribly nice email when we were kids. But I always go into her books feeling that they will be the perfect fit for me, and then instead they are like that one dress you buy because you think it’s going to be the perfect work dress, and it looks pretty but the pockets are slightly uneven and the way the neckline is prevents you from…
31 CommentsAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
I’d like to think I am pretty good at sorting out strategies to feel less sad on days when I am feeling sad. But sometimes my strategies bomb, and you are now reading a review of one of those times. I was feeling glum this one day, and I decided that to cheer myself up I was going to read a new book, and I picked The Descendants. Jeanne had said it was really good, and I knew vaguely from two-thirds-forgotten movie trailers that it was about a not-super-close family going on like — a road trip? Maybe? And it…
12 CommentsA new book by an art director at Alfred Knopf explores cover art and the work done by book jackets. He has another book out at the same time about visualizing while we read, and they both look brilliant. Here he is at Slate.com talking about the former. I have the latter checked out of the library, and it is gorgeous and strange. I want to hug MTV for creating this resource “See This, Say That.” These aren’t necessarily the exact things I’d recommend saying in these situations, but I dig that MTV is making the effort here. One of…
20 CommentsIn celebration of Whiskey Jenny’s visit to Louisiana, we play a game of Louisiana trivia, composed by the brilliant and beautiful Whiskey Jenny! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 27a Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much). Credits Producer: Captain Hammer Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee Song is by Jeff MacDougall and comes from here.
Leave a CommentWhat I thought was a reading slump has turned out to be a mania for rereading. I’ve reread Special Topics in Calamity Physics and am happily entrenched in HHhH. Wonderful rereading! It has been too long since I reread some of the excellent fiction on my shelves! Glorious!
13 CommentsNote: I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration. In my professional career, academics have occasionally been really, really snotty to me when I didn’t deserve snottiness. This isn’t a judgment on academics. When you work with a very large number of people from any demographic group, it is statistically likely that a couple of them will be jerks. But still: I have sometimes asked an academic a simple question, and s/he has responded with — instead of an answer to my question — a paragraphs-long, sarcasm-and-righteousness-laden treatise on his/her mistreatment at the hands…
18 CommentsNote: I received a copy of Landline from the publisher for review consideration. Two days before Christmas, Georgie tells her husband Neal that she can’t go with him and their two daughters to spend Christmas with his family in Omaha. A tremendous opportunity has come up for her and her writing partner, Seth, and they have to stay in L.A. and write six episodes of their new television show. After Neal leaves, Georgie begins to fear that she’s damaged her marriage beyond repair. But at her mother’s house, she finds that if she calls using her mother’s rotary phone, she…
24 CommentsFirst of all, this isn’t book-related, but I don’t know how I can lead with anything else because this is what I’ve mostly been thinking about all this week and last week: Following the police shooting of yet another unarmed black man (kid, actually), in Ferguson, everything is horrible. Here’s Brittany Cooper talking about how tired she is of these stories as they come one after another, seemingly forever. And here’s Greg Howard talking about the militarization of the police force and the criminalization of young black men, and here’s Jelani Cobb on anger and weariness. Y’all, this makes me…
10 CommentsThe Jennys foolishly discuss fictional schools, classes, and teachers, without the benefit of Randon’s presence; but we have a lot of opinions even without his two cents on what makes a good teacher. Then we review Nathan Filer’s The Shock of the Fall (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), which tore Gin Jenny’s heart apart and which Whiskey Jenny was not wild about. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 27 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if…
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