2013

Maisie Dobbs: Birds of a Feather

2013, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Mystery, Women /

I enjoyed the first Maisie Dobbs so much that I immediately reserved the second book, Birds of a Feather. But, I accidentally reserved it in audio. Not intentional, definitely, because I have a lot of audio books on my reserve list and I try to keep it to less than three because otherwise they all come in at once and we don’t have enough time to listen to them before they have to back. I also wasn’t sure we’d like the English accents in audio — sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. This time — we did!

Another good story. I really like all of these characters (but I hope Maisie picks Dr Dean over Detective Stanton… jus sayin’.)

I’ve reserved the next book, in audio (sigh — all of my audios will probably come in next week and we’ll have to return some unread! I hate it when that happens…)

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Afterwards

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed, Fiction, Mystery /

There were a half dozen books on the library cart with an 8/18 due date. I knew I couldn’t read them all and none could be renewed – so I asked TW to tell me which ones she thought I should read.

Afterwards was one of those books.

Oy. One of those books that makes moms have nightmares. It was good, (good enough for me to stay up past midnight to finish it), even though I had mostly figured it all out long before the author let us in on who did it (or all of the its, since there were several things going on.) That’s probably the only problem I had with the book — too many issues going on with Jenny. Yea, that made it twisty but only a little twisty. The stalker bit just never really worked well for me, I guess.

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The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells

2013, Books in Bed, Queer, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

Here’s another book that started a little slow for me — slow enough that I wondered why I take “what to read next” advice from TW so often. But, just as I was thinking I’d put down The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells and start something else, I realized it was written by the author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli so I stuck it out.

I’m glad I did. Because once Greta found herself in her second life/time, I was hooked and pretty much wanted to just read straight through (with brief stops for Candy Crush, of course.)

Interesting ending. I didn’t think that’s where the “original” Greta would stay, though it was the time/life that made the most sense for her (and probably the other Gretas, as well).

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Every Day

3 Comments / 2013, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Every Day is the YA trouble book of all time — there will never be a YA trouble book that has more trouble than this one. It’s impossible.

Because A wakes up in the body of a different 16 year old every single day. This means A deals with every single YA trouble under the sun. It gets particularly problematic when A wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin’s girlfriend and tries to figure out how he/she can have a relationship with Rhiannon (and Rhiannon tries to figure out how she can dump Justin and have a relationship with A.)

Oy.

It was interesting — mostly because we couldn’t figure out how this was going to end. Since A obviously couldn’t stay in someone else’s body. It did all wrap up with a neat, but sad, little ending. An ending I didn’t particularly like but an ending that made sense. As much sense as a book about someone who has no body of his/her own and moves around to a new body every day for his/her whole life can make.

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Some Kind of Fairy Tale

2013, Books in Bed, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I wasn’t sure I was going to like Some Kind of Fairy Tale, even though TW said I would like it. I find myself bored, some times, by fairy stories, so when this one started off a little slowly I was afraid I wasn’t going to enjoy it much (think back to that one I read a couple of months ago, set in Austin? Yea, like that.) But nope, about 50 pages in, I was hooked and didn’t really want to put it down.

I particularly liked the introduction of Mrs. Larwood, toward the end. And, the ending was just the right ending, too.

If some guy comes asking for some cherry blossoms from your tree — say no.

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Down Bohicket Road

1 Comment / 2013, Art, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

It always makes me smile when I see a book like Down Bohicket Road sitting on the shelf in the library. I can’t resist checking those out. Even though they make me homesick. Even though they make me question why I am adamantly opposed to moving back to Charleston when we leave here.

How about we compromise — someone buy me a Karen Whyte painting. Preferably one of Freda in a church hat…. but really, I’m not all that picky. Anything from Bohicket Road would do.

Sigh.

I particularly liked this book because not only were there paintings, there were stories. And the artist was honest about the racism she grew up with — and carried with her when she moved to Johns Island.

And, just for fun… you can “drive” down Bohicket Road, if you like…. it’s not the same as being there but…

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Maisie Dobbs

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

I impulse picked Maisie Dobbs from a shelf at the library, not really knowing what I was getting myself into, (or really, TW into — since I picked it up with the assumption that TW would read it and I’d never manage to, because she reads really fast and I’m way behind on my TBR list.) I just liked the cover.

Turns out this is one of those series that slipped by me, unnoticed — that I totally should have noticed.

I love Maisie Dobbs. Love everything about her. Can’t wait to read all of the books in the series.

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The Curiosities

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, short stories, Young Adult /

I’m not a big fan of short stories — they tend to be too long, too short, do a bad job with back story or are too darn interesting and I’m left wishing I knew more. Overall, generally more frustrating than not.

So when I saw The Curiosities was a book of short stories, in the YA Fantasy/SciFi category of the Cybils shortlist — I wasn’t thrilled. I figured I’d just get it over with early and be done with it.

Turns out this is one of the best short stories compilations EVER. I particularly enjoyed the commentary between the three authors and immediately subscribed to their blog, The Merry Sisters of Fate so I can read more of their stories (I’ve already read several of their novels.)

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Reading in July

5 Comments / 2013, Books in Bed /

It was a slow, difficult month for books. I think. I’m not really sure, actually. It seems like all I did was work. And play candy crush because my brain was fried from work.

Let’s see how bad it really was…

12 books total. (See! Bad month for books. Oy)

1 was an eBook on my Kindle
3 were children’s fiction
3 YA fiction
2 were for the Cybils challenge
2 were Audio
3 were Non-fiction

Oops. I apparently didn’t read anything From My Stacks. I’ll have to do better about that this month.

I’m hoping August is better…. particularly since September will also be a bad month for books because JMP is coming!

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ROOTS: Where Food Comes From and Where It Takes Us

3 Comments / 2013, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Kindle, Non-Fiction, short stories /

The ROOTS Anthology is a BlogHer book — I am employed by BlogHer but I purchased the book myself. I was not asked to write about the book. The opinions expressed here are my own and I readily admit I’m probably a little biased.

OK a lot biased.

I know a good many of the people whose stories are featured in this anthology. I’ve spent time with them in person. I’ve read their blogs for years. I hang out with them on Chatter/Twitter and Facebook. It’s hard not to love this book because, well, these people are MY people.

It was fun to hear several of them read their stories at BlogHer Food — a little foodie community-like keynote. So fun. It was just as fun to read their stories again last week. I might even have felt tempted to make some of the recipes. (OK Fine. I might have been tempted to ask TW to make some of their recipes. Happy now?)

I loved this book. Yea, I’m biased.

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