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Blood, Bones, and Butter, by Gabrielle Hamilton
After an idyllic early childhood, things came apart for Gabrielle Hamilton. Her parents’ marriage disintegrated, and she went from viewing her mother as a quirky icon to treating her as anathema. In...
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A Memoir of Grief and Growing Up Soon to Grace the Big Screen: “The Rules of...
It was recently announced that Claire Bidwell Smith’s memoir, The Rules of Inheritance, will be made into a movie starring Academy-award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence. Smith lost both of her...
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Destiny of the Republic
When a writer can bring historical characters to life, give the reader a sense of what issues and emotions motivated their choices, it’s something truly special, a chance for readers to experience...
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The Novel is alive and well, thank you very much: How to Read a Novelist
John Freeman is a passionate reader. John Freeman is also a champion of authors, books and reading. He has been a book critic for years, was president of the National Book Critics Circle and editor in...
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Into the Muck with You
Should your book group read sports books? Many would quickly say no, but I beg to differ. In the last ten years, I’ve become a much less regular watcher of sports, but I still read sports books. An...
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Youthreads
I love that the folks at Buzzfeed are readers. Their witty and literary lists make me think about grouping books in quirky ways. One of their most recent lists, “65 Books You Need to Read in Your 20s”...
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Discussable Duets: Teenage bullies–actual, virtual, and fictional
Rare is the person who doesn’t have a painful memory of the teen years to share when the topic comes up in conversation. One place where many folks feel safe talking about the teen years is a book...
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Read for what ails you
Every reader understands the concept of picking up a book in times of stress, sadness, anxiety, and sleeplessness. Sometimes it’s far more convenient to reach for a book than the aspirin. Ella Berthoud...
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Tea & Conversation: Talking about Jane Austen
There are certain books that will never lose interest for book groups and Jane Austen’s works easily fall into that category. The beloved and layered characters, the intricate plots revolving around...
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Read This!
One of the ways to identify a true book lover is to find the person who secretly enjoys building up a much longer “to-read” list than time will possibly allow one to read. I know I’m talking to a...
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Luck + Pluck = Survival
Do give books—religious or otherwise—for Christmas. They are never fattening, seldom sinful and permanently personal.— Lenore Hershey I can’t believe I have not written about this book before! I am...
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Poser
Ever since I read Champion Dog, Prince Tom in second grade, I have been besotted with books. I became partial to fiction during the week I spent following the progress of Prince from frisky pup to...
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Men We Reaped
Race may be one of the most difficult topics to confront in America. Everyone has an opinion and no one has a solution. We both obsess on it and ignore it every day in our interactions with each...
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The Power of Small Actions
Please welcome my guest blogger, Ryan Warner, who lives in Olympia Washington with his wife and son. He fell in love with discovery and learning at a very young age and is never without a book. As an...
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Diving into Nonfiction
I’m late in the list of readers to take in the pleasures of Robert Kurson’s 2004 book, Shadow Divers. It’s a wonderful book, but I think most of you already knew that. So instead of talking just about...
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Relish
I don’t have much history with graphic novels. My husband has a collection of Marvel comics from the 1970′s, featuring superheroes flanked by large-busted women in metal bras. I avoid the dusty, lurid...
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A Fine Time with Feinstein
The best sports books rise above the immediate concerns of the game and deal with grace under pressure, the ability of any human to handle everything life can bring in the toughest of situations....
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Mothering and Daughtering
I have recently developed an interest in adolescence. Until now, I was just trying to forget it ever happened to me. I am not alone in thinking back on those years of hormone-fueled drama with regret...
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Population 485
Once, at a party, I was chatting with a therapist who told me he recommended Michael Perry’s Truck to several patients (he had also recommended Eat, Pray, Love, because he felt his patients needed to...
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Don’t Supersize Me
Overlook, if you will, the title of this book, which plays on women’s deepest fears. Picking up where the French Women Don’t Get Fat trend left off, Naomi Moriyama takes us to her native Japan, where...
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