How much devastation can you pack into 100 pages? A lot. Even more when every word is true. In the vein of Night by Elie Wiesel or Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, Marceline Loridan-Ivens recounts her years as a slave (her word) in several prisons and concentrations camps. Loridan-Ivens was arrested with her… Continue reading Book Review: But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens
There are books that, once you read them, change your view of literature and what it can be. One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of those books for me. This was the first I'd read from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, on an island in the Philippines, more than ten years ago, and the first example… Continue reading Friday Favourite: One Hundred Years of Solititude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
...with some playground thrown in. (Fair warning: this is mostly pictures of my kid. I think she's cute.) Spring is showing up around here and I love it. We moved last summer but the first time we viewed our house was in the spring and the green backyard full of flowers was one of the… Continue reading Garden, Forest, Beach
People love others not because they are lovable necessarily but because it takes such a weight off the heart. Having read one previous novel by Elizabeth Hay (Alone in the Classroom), I began to read her latest book expecting a decent read. I'm happy to report that Hay blew my expectations out of the water.… Continue reading Book Review: His Whole Life by Elizabeth Hay
*I've added a new page on the blog that lists all the book reviews. Currently, it is alphabetical by author's last name. Let me know if you have thoughts on better/additional ways to organize that. Feel free to check out some of the older reviews, including some books I'd forgotten I'd ever reviewed! Did you… Continue reading What I Read – April 2016
It's rare that I really neglect my child in order to read a book, but I came pretty close while reading The Secret History. Tartt provides all the suspense of a good mystery, mixed in with a lot of thoughtful philosophy, strong characters, and great writing. Our narrator is Richard, a young man who… Continue reading Book Review: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
As a parent, I look forward to the day when I can tell my kids that I remember the world before the Internet. That I can remember the first iPads, the days before everyone had an e-mail address, or the time when - if you wanted to have a telephone conversation - you had to… Continue reading Book Review: Telephone Time – A First Book of Telephone Do’s and Don’t’s (Reading with Pearl)
There's a lot to applaud in Sunil Yapa's debut novel. He combines words and creates scenes in unique ways, blending words unexpectedly to create a moment or invoke a sense. His descriptions are detailed without tipping over to the realm of overkill and the results are characters and scenes that are easy to visualize. The… Continue reading Book Review: Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa
Check out Day #1 and Day #2, as well as Judith's original challenge to find out what this is all about. My third and final quote comes from C.S. Lewis. I could probably share C.S. Lewis quotes all day long but since I'm sticking to things I've read this year, I'm sharing a quote from… Continue reading 3 Day Quote Challenge: Day #3
(Check out Day #1 and Judith at ReadandReview2016 to see what this is all about.) My quote for Day #2 comes from Don Quixote. If you've been reading along here then you know that I (finally) finished Don Quixote in March and that it was a long time coming. For such a big book, I… Continue reading 3 Day Quote Challenge: Day #2
Karissa Reads Books 