2024: an interlude

I know, I know. I haven't finished my reviews of last year's books. But we're getting further and further into 2024, and I'm in danger of putting myself in the same situation as I did last year: ending up with 143 books to cover all at once! So we're going to interrupt your regularly scheduled …

2023 books breakdown, part the first

Yikes. It's February. A whole week into February. January lasted for a million years, yet I still somehow managed to let it slip by without a breakdown of last year's books! And I know you've all been in suspense! So let's begin. I thought we'd start with series (fun fact: series is what's known as …

My year in reading, 2023 edition

I don't know why I always think I'm going to "hit the ground running" the day after I come home from a long Christmas trip. I sometimes even say those ridiculous words out loud, "hit the ground running." I'm actually terrible at running, much less hitting the ground while doing it. The first day back, …

Two hard hitters

I thought my next fangirl post would be for Charlie Fletcher's A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, a very fun post-apocalyptic tale of a determined kid and, well, a dog. It's a very fun read, full of finely wrought dramatic tension and surprising plot twists, and I highly recommend it. …

What to read and what not to

As I mentioned, I finished Anthony Doerr's About Grace just a few minutes before hitting publish on my last post, so I while it was also one of the best books of last month, I figured I'd save it for its own post. Anthony Doerr is a writer who makes me want to write. His …

January in books, and digital opinions

I asked my parents for a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas, and they came through (they always do). It's perfect for reading in bright sunlight, which was my primary motivation in choosing it over the regular Kindle, and we've moved to an area with -- let's call it a less than robust public library system -- …

‘The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.’ — Wittgenstein

Let's take a break from books (gasp!) to talk about language for a minute. One of my kids was doing his Spanish workbook today and came to the word guisante next to a picture of some peas. I thought to myself that the word was vaguely familiar, but it's not the word I remember my …

2022 redux, part the third

Today's honorable mention post goes to a couple of books that I left off my official reading list because they were quite short (each one took about an hour and a half to listen to on Audible), and adding them to the total books count felt like I was just padding my numbers. But these …

2022 redux, part the second

I have some more honorable mentions to get through, because I read a lot of great books last year, but I wanted to go through my least favorites list first. It's shorter. To be clear: these are not bad books, they just didn't do it for me, and here's why. I Love You But I've …

2022 books redux, part the first

As promised, mi gente, we're getting into details about some of my reading from last year. Let's start with the accolades. The best book I read last year was a re-read but it had been a while since I cracked it open and I forgot how truly amazing it is. Anthony Marra's The Tsar of …