It's officially summer: the farmer's market is open, the humidity is threatening to melt my brain...and my kids are out of school, which means I am lucky to get fifteen minutes of uninterrupted reading before someone shouts out "I REQUIRE SUSTENANCE!" or asks me to admire their latest Lego creation. Even so, I'm not yet…
Typically, when I think of a spinster detective, it's Miss Marple who comes to mind. I'm quite enamored of that fluffy little old lady, the tidy-yet-murderous village of St. Mary Mead, and her ever-present knitting needles. But sometimes I yearn for something a little darker. Not gory, but ominous and unexpected and unputdownable. If you,…
Whenever I get invested in a series, I start to worry. What if the author does a terrible job with the final book? What if they can’t wrap it up in a way that feels true and satisfying – leaving me wanting more, while making sure that the characters find resolution? What if they can’t…
I’m not saying that Matt Haig’s HOW TO STOP TIME is guilty of false advertising, exactly. But if you were hoping for an instruction manual for pressing a giant cosmic pause button, this is probably not the book for you. (To be fair, we’re shelving it in the fiction section. It’s not like you weren’t…
As we’ve discussed before, I do not like scary things. I do not like horror movies, zombies, vampires, werewolves, or monsters. I do not like haunted houses. I do not like fish, unless the fish in question is being served to me, preferably with some wasabi and pickled ginger. How, then, I ended up reading…
I am convinced that oatmeal raisin cookies have magical healing powers. No matter what ill befalls me, a nice cup of tea and a plateful of freshly baked oatmeal raisin cookies can be counted on to set things right, including headaches, fevers, and parenting-induced hypertension. While the medical community has yet to weigh in on…
Reading Resolutions As the year winds down, I find myself doing a fair amount of reflection. What worked? What didn't? What books did I read and love to itty bitty pieces? (A few of my faves from this year...) But I'm also pondering the future. What do I want to accomplish in 2018? My answer should probably be something…
Seventeen years. SEVENTEEN YEARS. That's how long I've been waiting for The Book of Dust, Book One: La Belle Sauvage, the newest book by Philip Pullman. La Belle Sauvage is set in the same world as Pullman's acclaimed fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials. That series followed the adventures of Lyra Belaqua, a brave, impulsive girl from an alternate-world version of Oxford, England and her daemon Pantalaimon, a shapeshifting animal connected…
At my house, family movie night is one of those ideas that seems SO GOOD in theory. Family bonding! Popcorn aplenty! Low-cost, thanks to the plethora of options at our friendly local library! But pretty quickly, this brilliant idea runs up against cold, hard reality: I have three children, ranging in age from almost-seventeen to…
Confession: I do not like Halloween. Candy aside, it is not my holiday. Not at all. I don't like scary things, or people in masks, or gore. I rely on other people to tell me which horror books and movies are good, because to be honest...horror makes me cry. In short, I am a scaredy…
