Throughout her childhood, Laurie Sandell’s father would enrapture her with stories of his brilliant, varied, and successful life: top grades at the best universities, meetings with Henry Kissinger to advise on policy, multiple awards for valor in the Vietnam War. As an adult, she spun through years of dysfunction and uncertainty before becoming an interviewer of celebrities. But Sandell also begins to learn things about her father that make it clear he isn’t, and never was, the person he claimed to be. Cover report: Same cover in England and America. I like it! To begin with the good things about…
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One of my resolutions for the New Year was to read more nonfiction, and I have happily gotten off to an excellent start. As far as personal development goes, this is splendid, but often not so good for writing reviews. For all the extra time it takes to get through a nonfiction book, I never know what to say about them in the end. If you are a frequent nonfiction reviewer (hi, Kim!), I would be interested to know how you conceptualize and structure your reviews. Bad Pharma is my first book for Long-Awaited Reads Month, hosted by the very…
32 CommentsHappy 2014, lovely readers! I hope everyone has had a pleasant holiday. I schedule this post in the sincere hope that by the time it posts, I will be safely ensconced in my nice new apartment, having undergone no serious furniture mishaps in the process. I am terribly fond of my couch and would not like to see it harmed. The beginning: While on vacation in Majorca, Mia’s husband Frederik yells at her furiously, then falls down. When they take him to the emergency room, they learn that he has a brain tumor, which triggered an epileptic seizure. The tumor…
12 CommentsMerry Christmas, Christmas celebrating people! Today’s very abbreviated podcast talks about the Christmas books we love! Whiskey Jenny, Randon, and I all list our favorite Christmas books, some well-known and some wildly underappreciated. Let us know your favorites too! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly here to take with you on the go. Episode 13a Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We will appreciate it very very much). Credits Producer: Captain Hammer If you visit…
2 CommentsDAMN this was a good year for books. As I was scrolling through old posts trying to make a Best of 2013 list, I was astounded at the percentage of posts this year that were four or five stars. Now, I will say that as years go on, I have become ever less inclined to review books about which I felt neutral, but even so, 2013 was an incredible year for books. It was so good that I gave up on the Best of 2013 idea, which would have felt uncurated because it would have included almost everything I read…
54 CommentsThe beginning: The beginning of Lament (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is not promising, dear friends. A teenager called Deirdre (Dee) meets a mysterious and handsome boy called Luke at a music festival, and they play a stunning duet together. There is some mysterious magical stuff going on, and then Dee and Luke are madly in love forever. Cover report: Ooo, this one’s tough. Aesthetically I think the British cover is better, but I hate the tagline, and I think the American cover says more about the contents of the book. I’m giving it to the American cover in…
18 CommentsLast week, in pursuit of the question Why are there not yet Lizzie Bennet DVDs in my greedy hands?, I found a very dispirited Google Doc in which Bernie Su, showrunner of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and now Emma Approved, addressed criticisms he has evidently been receiving about the new series. Apparently people out there in the Pemberley Digital fandom are upset about problems including but not limited to: Delays in the DVDs of Lizzie Bennet Diaries; lack of diversity in the Emma Approved universe; not enough transmedia stuff in the Emma Approved storyline; the creators having Sold Out; Emma Approved…
36 CommentsI have discovered that what I like in a biography is lots and lots and lots of quotations. When I was reading Julie Phillips’s excellent biography of Alice Sheldon, I kept reading bits of it out loud to Mumsy, and Mumsy said, “This is an autobiography?” It’s not, but Julie Phillips has brilliantly pulled together a multiplicity of letters, journals, and papers to create a wonderfully vivid picture of Sheldon’s life. To step back slightly: James Tiptree, Jr. was the pseudonym of science fiction writer Alice Sheldon, a woman who wrote fantastically creepy sci-fi stories about sex and death and…
11 CommentsThis week on the Reading the End Bookcast, we talk about music and the role it plays in books, and we review Jennifer Egan’s greatly beloved A Visit from the Goon Squad (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository). Then we play a game of matching similes to the authors who wrote them, and wrap up by answering some listener mail. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly here to take with you on the go. Episode 13 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy…
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