Non-Fiction

The Death of the Great Santini

2014, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

The Death of the Great Santini wasn’t a great memoir but it was interesting — in places. The beginning and the ending, in particular — the stuff in the middle was a little touch and go. I’ve wondered what happened to the family after The Great Santini was written — now I know.

Reading it made me want to sit through a Conroy movie marathon or re-read his books but who has time for that? I watched Conrack tonight (thank you, youtube – it’s been ages since I’ve seen that movie!) and I think I’ll watch The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides next week and skip The Lords of Discipline because I can only take so much anger and The Lords of Discipline makes me shudder. (Go Bulldogs? ugh.)

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1963: The Year of the Revolution

2014, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I was born in 1963 and the cover of 1963: The Year of the Revolution is cool so I checked it out. I wasn’t sure I would read it. I thought I might just flip through the photos because my TBR list is long and was this something I really NEEDED or WANTED to read?

I’m not sure I did need or even want to read it but it was a super fast read and kind of interesting. A lot repetitive and a little disjointed since it was really just a whole bunch of superstars (who you may or may not know depending upon your cultural literacy, particularly British cultural literacy, from ’63) talking about 1963. They (too often) said the same things that others said and they (too often) said the same damn thing they’d already said earlier on the page or in the book.

But, it was interesting and amusing enough that I read the whole thing, really quickly and it was interesting.

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Redefining Girly

2014, Books in Bed, Feminism, Non-Fiction, Women /

I know you’re shocked that I liked Redefining Girly. Hah.

I didn’t love it, but it was good — particularly for those who are just beginning to sort out the whole marketing of gender issue. It’s probably best for those with young children (or no children at all) — those with older kids (tweens/teens) are going to find the recommendations too young, too basic, and not quite on the mark, particularly if they haven’t already been raising their children to question gender stereotypes.

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Steal Like an Artist

2014, Art, Books in Bed, From the Stacks Challenge, Kindle, Non-Fiction /

I’m on an e-Book roll! I have no idea how long Steal Like An Artist has been in my Kindle cloud but it was a fun read during the five and ten minute breaks I took from cleaning my house today.

Super fast read. Nothing really groundbreaking or revolutionary. I did smile a lot about the calendar/log book section — I’ve gone back to paper journaling and filofaxing for all of those reasons.

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Hatching Twitter

2014, Books in Bed, From the Stacks Challenge, Kindle, Non-Fiction /

Elisa sent me a copy of Hatching Twitter at the end of last year and when I needed to download a book for all of the waiting rooms I was going to be sitting in, it seemed like this was a good choice.

I was kind of hoping it would inspire me to go back to Twitter and figure out how to enjoy it again. But no. It didn’t. It might have done exactly the opposite. What. A. Mess.

No wonder we all got so familiar with the fail whale… geez.

Also, am I the only one who wants to track down @Noah and tell him that he did a good thing and he’s better off where he is, than to be in that mess? Long live @Noah! And @jack just makes me roll my eyes. Over and over and over again. Which is what generally happens any time I spend more than 5 minutes on Twitter. Coincidence?

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Two Graphic Novels

2014, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

One Cybil, one not. The Lost Boy is from the Cybils shortlist and it was good. Though if creepy talking dolls scare you, then maybe this is not the graphic novel for you. I got a little confused at the end so I think I’m going to go back and re-read it to see if I can sort out the confusion. Though it might just be confusing as a set up for future books and not me reading while I was tired.

A Matter of Life is not a Cybils book and is also not YA and it’s not fiction. I just got tired of looking at it on the library shelf and decided to check it out so it would quit staring at me when I was looking for something new on the graphic novel shelves. It was… ok. The jumping around bugged me. Jeff as adult, Jeff as a young boy, Jeff as adult, Jeff as teen. All very confusing. In some cases the panels flowed well, in others the jumps were too jarring and I was left saying, “huh?” a lot.

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The Best Flea, Antique, Vintage and New-Style Markets in America

2014, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

Impulse pick-up from the library, The Best Flea, Antique, Vintage and New-Style Markets in America — that’s a lot of words for a tiny little book. It was fun to flip through and think about taking a lot of little road trips to buy all of the funky, weird, things. We should really see about the National Road Yard Sale one of these years, before we leave this godforsaken part of the country — it’s not that far to US 40 and it would be a fun road trip, right?

And, we should head back to Philadelphia and visit some of their markets, too.

Also, go back to Austin and and and… yea, I want to take all the road trips.

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Productive, I Was!

1 Comment / 2014, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

Another day, another half dozen “to dos” scratched off of my Filofax list. Yay me.

I did manage to clean the house, it took FOREVER but I did it. I even managed to get a load of laundry done and put away so yay me for keeping up with the laundry for all of 2014. Hah.

I worked on JMP’s stocking for a very long time — while watching four or five episodes of Dawson’s Creek. (Oh Jack, Oh Pacey, Oh Andie. lol)

I only managed to finish one book, It’s Complicated (which I’ll blog in depth on BlogHer later this week.) I used an entire package of giraffe post-its while reading danah’s book!

And better yet, I managed to do absolutely no work, other than to answer a couple of Sassymonkey’s emails. Look at me, taking an entire holiday OFF of work. Crazy, right? Re-entry tomorrow might be a problem though — my inbox is flooded with unanswered email. Gah.

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Frommer’s EasyGuide to Miami and Key West (2014)

2014, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

Total impulse pick up at the library a couple of weeks ago. I was roaming, waiting for TW to finish filling her bag and I saw Frommer’s EasyGuide to Miami and Keywest 2014 on the shelf. I figured what the heck — we’ve been to Miami but if we get lucky enough to make it to BlogHer Food in a few months, it wouldn’t hurt to take a peek at what was new and interesting and/or nearby the hotel.

It was a fun read late last night and made me homesick. And, I have a couple of ideas for things to do if we find ourselves with some free time in Miami in May.

(Just a note to myself, read in 1/14 – counted in 1/4)

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The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne

2014, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

From the Cybils Short List, The Bronte Sisters (and brother, because you can’t actually have a book about the three sisters without mentioning the poor brother — more than mention him, give him just about as much page space as the sisters…)

A pretty good book for kids who don’t know much about the Brontes. A little boring for me since I seem to have read quite a few books about them. The photos were a nice touch — helped with the dryness of the text from time to time. Nice job including sections from their works. Overall, nicely done.

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