Review—Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

As I was reading Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley, I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I said, “I wish I had her brain!”

Moral “Simplicity” and the Complexity of Reading

Most of the time, I read interviews with authors and don’t write anything in response. However, when I read the interview Susan Lerner did with Jonathan Franzen, his take on the “hard lives” of people and their reading habits set me off. So, here we go:

My Year In Books—The Measure of 2014

It’s no secret I love books. I love reading them. I love looking at them before I’ve read them, wondering about their secrets. I love looking at them after I’ve read them, because I know they are a physical representation of a story that I’ve lived in some way, and that now lives within me.

A Month of No New Books—The Final TBR Shelf

Here we are! The last TBR shelf I have! I can’t believe it. I mean, I really can’t believe I have so many books to read. However, to be fair, apparently this collection of books I have yet to read demonstrates that I have a condition called “tsundoku.”

A Month of No New Books—Day 15

I am halfway there! Isn’t that amazing? I think it’s amazing…then again I’m the one trying to detox myself from buying books. You might also think it’s amazing. Then again, you might also think I never should’ve been buying that many books to begin with. And you’d be right.

A Month of No New Books—Day 10

Well, here we are. Ten days in, and I haven’t bought any new books. Not even for my daughter for Christmas (I did start buying Christmas presents early…I always do). I think I might be turning a corner as far as my addiction is concerned. I think seeing the sheer volume of books waiting for me to read them has had a significant impact on me…and so I am reformed. Maybe. I really want Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. But I am getting closer

The Top Ten Book “Thing”

I received numerous tags on Facebook for this “list ten books that have stayed with me in some way” thing that’s going around, and I finally gave in and made a list, which I posted on my personal Facebook page and am reproducing here.

Fifty Shades of Shame

Yes, that’s right…after holding out for forever, and feeling buried by work and so many other things, I finally gave up and decided to read Fifty Shades of Grey. Why? Well, as Neil Gaiman said, we all need an escape sometimes, and sometimes the heavy fiction I am so prone to reading is just not good to read in the midst of a school year. Also, friends of mine – and my mother-in-law (YIKES!) – have read it, and they seemed largely unaffected by it (both literally and intellectually), so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to read just the first book of the series. After all, an escape is fine every once in a while: a balanced approach is always good, right? After all, I try to read “real” literature the majority of the time.