Non-Fiction

The Woman Who Can’t Forget

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

The Woman Who Can’t Forget is another non-fiction plucked from Zan’s 2008 reading list.

Interesting but not super compelling. I kept wondering if she’d ever tried hypnosis. Can she be hypnotized? What would happen if she was asked about a date or an event under hypnosis – would her memory of the day/event be even stronger? the same? would it effect her memory of it after hypnosis? Would she be susceptible to suggestibility, which she seems not susceptible to in ways that the rest of us are?

OK I’m done thinking about this now.

The Woman Who Can’t Forget Read More »

I was told there’d be cake

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction, short stories /

Every year I look forward to Zandria’s end of year reading list because Zan reads a lot of non-fiction. Every year I scroll through her “read” list and pull a few non-fictions from her list and add them to my “must read” list.

The first for this year is I Was Told There’d Be Cake.

I was ambivalent. Essays can either be excellent or really horrible. I was pretty sure this one wasn’t going to be horrible, I saw too many good reviews. Still, I worried. For about three minutes and then I sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the reading.

Thank you, Zan.

I was told there’d be cake Read More »

4 Cybils I did love – or at least like a whole lot

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Young Adult /

I didn’t plan to read quite so many of these last night but it happened and it was fun. There were four that I loved or liked a whole heck of a lot.

First, a non-fiction MG/YA – 11 Planets A New View of the Solar System – the only concern I have about this book is its listing as a YA. It’s a little young and a little light for a YA. Though, honestly at 45, I found the refresher pretty interesting and even helpful when I started reading Unca Joe’s latest book Marsbound (but that’s another post entirely.) So maybe it is YA – for the really non-science geek crowd? It was well written, well organized, great photos, interesting charts in the back. It almost made me wish I was in 4th grade and needed to write a report about the planets.

Next, A River of Words (non-fiction picture book) – what a fantastic book about William Carlos Williams. Great illustrations, they were perfect and really helped make the book so interesting. I’d like to own this one.

After that, Houndsley and Catina and the Quiet Time hahaha – great book and not just because Catina feels the way I do about the snow (or she did at the beginning of the book.) Nice illustrations. This is a book I think all of my big kids would have asked me to read to them over and over again – and then enjoyed reading on their own.

Last but not least, a last minute read when I needed an easy quick book to read so that I could start Unca Joe’s book as soon as TW had finished it – and she wasn’t quite finished – Alvin Ho (middle grade fiction.) I laughed out loud. A lot. It reminded me a little bit of the graphic novel, American Born Chinese – without the illustrations (though there were some and the ones that were there were fabulous.) When Alvin has his “Astroman” incident I seriously laughed out loud which is good since I’m like Alvin’s dad – do not touch my toys, darn it! I loved, loved, loved this book and I’m hoping to convince Liz to read it.

4 Cybils I did love – or at least like a whole lot Read More »

Finished 2 Cybils that I did not love…

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Don't Read This, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry /

The problem with having so many easy readers and picture books on a challenge list is that I can read a half dozen in an hour and then figuring out how to properly blog them is difficult. I’m going to give this a shot… group them by how much I liked them, or didn’t like them… as the case may be.

The Cybils finalists that I did not love were America at War (poems) and Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek (a fiction picture book.) It’s not that they were bad, I just did not LOVE them and I want to love Cybil books. 😉

The poems in America at War were fine. There were some we’d all find familiar and children should definitely be exposed to them. There were some that I’d like us all to find familiar and those were the ones I was happy to see in the book. There were others that… just bored me. And poetry about war should not bore me.

As for Abe and his friend Austin – I liked the premise. I just didn’t like the way the author told the story. While I agree that children should be introduced to the idea that “history” is only a version of what may or may not have happened… I think the whole “back up, have them crawl across the log” was ridiculous. Then the “where’s Austin” page, umm really was that necessary? I don’t know, I just didn’t like the book and when I finished it I was glad I no longer have children who might bring this home and expect me to enjoy reading it to them.

Finished 2 Cybils that I did not love… Read More »

Home Girl

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, From the Stacks Challenge, Non-Fiction, Women /

I received a free review copy of Home Girl ages, and ages, and ages ago. While we were still in Florida. TW read it while we were still in Florida which caused much discussion of payday loan stores and beeper stores and high end shoe stores in Chicago and its suburbs. I believe the reason we are not living on Dempster in Evanston is directly related to a payday loan store, a beeper store and this particular book.

So thanks for that, Judith Matloff. (I can’t decide if I mean that thank you seriously or sarcastically. I often wished we lived over there… but am also often very glad that we do not.)

But, since Judith Matloff and her husband are obviously INSANE, I don’t think she cares one way or another whether I blame her for my current living location. I mean really. She must be insane. I don’t think the level of her insanity really hit me until she brought her baby home (oops, spoiler – sorry) to the muchachos… in all of the time they were renovating and dealing with the business, she never seemed to have second thoughts about living there with this potential child she was daydreaming about. That’s the only part of this story that troubled me.

They left Russia because they wanted to have a family – where there was anesthesia and she wasn’t putting her life or her kids’ life in danger – yet throughout all of that madness, she doesn’t mention having second thoughts due to the possible danger to the child she hoped to have. She mentions it later, 200 pages or so later. Weird.

The rest of the book… loved it. I was thrilled to read it. And thank goodness I did read it… it helped me realize that no matter how cool and interesting and fun I might THINK buying a rundown house in a depressed area of Chicago might be… it is so, so, so not something I really am cut out for.

I do wonder what happened to Clarence and Miguel, though.

Home Girl Read More »

The Worst Noel

2 Comments / 2009, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, Non-Fiction, short stories /

Sassymonkey was right about Let It Snow but not so much right about The Worst Noel. I was pretty darn bored all the way through it – and TW didn’t even bother to read it all.

The only interesting thing I can say about this one is that I’ve decided I really do not like Anne Patchett which is too bad since I really liked Bel Canto. (Did I read the Magician’s Assistant? Have I read Run? Heck, I dunno anymore.)

The Worst Noel Read More »

Websterisms

2008, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I plucked Websterisms off of the “just back” shelf mostly because I thought TW would like it. She’s a big fan of the Webster. But, she turned up her nose at it. Weird.

I thought it would be a quick read during the crazy days leading up to Christmas so I put it on my nightstand ahead of some of the other novels waiting for me. It wasn’t a quick read, not in the beginning, but it was pretty interesting.

Once I got to the actual “dictionary”, I skimmed. Flipped the pages and read the definitions that popped out at me. Read the sidebar notes, stuff like that. This is the kind of book you just want sitting on your shelf so you can pick it up and choose a word just when you want to choose a word. Reading dictionaries all the way through is too much dictionary for me.

Websterisms Read More »

Loose Girl

2008, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction, Women /

I don’t have much to say about Loose Girl. It was depressing. It reminded me of another book I read and can’t remember the name of. Same sort of thing – girl gets addicted to X, almost destroys her life, gets her life back on track – also an memoir.

That’s probably all I have to say – except that it’s too bad there are so damn many of these kinds of memoirs written by women. Is there a male equivalent memoir? If there is, could someone give me the name of the book, please.

Loose Girl Read More »

The Jew Store

2008, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I was ambivalent about reading The Jew Store and I’m not sure why. It was in the “book club” section of the library which generally means a lot of people liked it, so I shouldn’t have been wary. But, having grown up in the south and read an awful lot of books about race and culture in the south… I was afraid I’d hate it.

I didn’t hate it. It was good. It was often amusing. It wasn’t a great book but it wasn’t bad either. I liked the Bronson family. I liked the small town Tennessee people. It was all very nice, even the not so nice pieces were “nice” – and that’s probably why it wasn’t a great book, just a good one.

The Jew Store Read More »

Chloe plus Olivia

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Classics, Favorites, Feminism, From the Stacks Challenge, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Queer, short stories, Women /

Thank freaking goodness I am very, very familiar with the work of women like Judy Grahn, Audre Lourde, Adrienne Rich etc etc etc. If I was not familiar with their work, I would still be reading Chloe plus Olivia well into the new year.

800 pages of lesbian lit. Aye yi yi. Text book style lesbian lit. Oy.

This was one hell of a lesbian anthology and if I had it to do all over again, I’d have read an author a day or skipped around a bit based on what my preference of the day might have been. Trying to read it straight through was not a fun experience and reading lesbian lit SHOULD be a fun experience.

By page 500, I was sick of lesbians… sick of masking… sick of the romantic friendship… sick of the man trapped in the womans body… I did not even want to think about the dangerous flowers or the amazons at that point. I just wanted it done. lol

There are some great writers in this anthology, some I’ve never read and a few I’ve never heard of. Great anthology, really. Just don’t try to read it straight through.

Chloe plus Olivia Read More »