Last year I read (and very much enjoyed) Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl. It tells the story of her adventures as the New York Times food critic.
That book probably got me thinking about food and restaurants a little bit more, and I noticed Heat by Bill Buford, which was on the New York [...]
Categories: Books
As I read I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron, I thought about how, with When Harry Met Sally and then Sleepless in Seattle and then You’ve Got Mail, Nora Ephron kind of . . . defined what it was to be a funny woman for [...]
Categories: Books
After not really liking the Narnia movie, I decided to put a ban on movies made from my favorite childhood books. No How to Eat Fried Worms. No Charlotte’s Web. And, after seeing the trailer, definitely no Bridge to Terabithia.
I have always thought that Bridge to Terabithia was a very special book. [...]
Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it’s an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.
I think [...]
Categories: Books
Alisa let me borrow Tara Leigh Cobble’s Here’s to Hindsight: Letters to My Former Self. The title, to me, is interesting . . . in one chapter, Tara Leigh and a friend talk about how, with hindsight, things come clear and you can see what you were learning and how you were growing. [...]
Categories: Books
Spoilers for last night’s Gilmore Girls: “I’m a Kayak, Hear Me Roar.”
How great was it to get an episode that had townies and grandparent action and no Christopher? It was like spring came early! No, like Christmas came early!
You know, the really sad thing is that the first half of the season could [...]
Categories: For Theresa
On Sunday, I did two things that were stretching. First, I spoke at church about prayer and the prayer team, inviting people to join. How do I feel about public speaking? Well, if the joke is that most people would rather be the dead person than the person speaking at the funeral, [...]
Categories: General
Not long after I became a librarian, I read Howard’s End. I had seen the movie when I was in high school, but never actually read the book. And what I remembered about the movie was: “I love Emma Thompson.” Because, in case I’ve never expounded upon her greatness: I love Emma [...]
Categories: Books
I liked The Book Thief. I thought it was a little overhyped, but it was good. It didn’t, you know, change my life or anything. But I liked it.
What I especially liked was the perspective. Not the narrator – I’ll get to that in a second. But it’s set in [...]
Categories: Books
Spoilers for Gilmore Girls episode “Farewell, My Pet.”
So, is it just me, or does it sound like Christopher has been reading my blog? He said all the things I’ve been saying! He even said part of it in a more clever way, like the “disengagement†line. I totally could have thought of [...]
Categories: For Theresa
I know that even the word “midwives” can raise hackles. Everyone has an opinion on midwives and home births, and I have seen discussions of the topic get rather heated. While this book is about a midwife who is on trial for a death that occurred while she was assisting a woman in [...]
Categories: Books
Sixty years ago, Leo Gursky wrote a book called The History of Love, and named all the female characters in it Alma, after his own true love, now lost to him. Leo thought his book was also lost, but it actually survived and was published. Now, Alma, a 15-year-old girl who was named [...]
Categories: Books
I read some books I enjoyed very much in the past week, including The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and Midwives by Chris Bohjalian (which, oh my goodness, I could not put down, and I will probably write about later) . But I’m going to skip those and talk about Because She Can [...]
Categories: Books
Alisa tagged me for “six weird things.†Do you know how hard it is to find weird things I haven’t already talked about extensively that aren’t too personal to share on the internets?
1. The toenails on my big toes grow in such a way that they poke holes in my shoes. It [...]
Categories: General
Two years ago, I read Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld on our spring vacation. I thought it was a well-written story, but, like Brandi, I thought the end was a bit of a cop-out. It was good enough, though, to make me want to read her second book when it came out last year. [...]
Categories: Books
(It took me so long to write about The Emperor’s Children that I am a little behind on writing about some of my other books as well. Don’t ask me why I have to write about them in order. I just do.)
This was an enjoyable read. Jancee Dunn is a contributing editor [...]
Categories: Books
I finished this book last week, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. I was still processing it, and for this one, I needed a little more time, though I will go ahead and say that I did like it, very much. I read it on the recommendation of 50 Books [...]
Categories: Books
Spoilers for Gilmore Girls episode “I’d Rather Be In Philadelphia.”
Again (Rebecca Rand Kirshner), last night’s episode had a certain sweetness to it that the Palladinos often eschewed in favor of quirkiness. Not that we didn’t get quirkiness last night – Babette was her lovable self, with the jungle bedroom and the dog walking. [...]
Categories: For Theresa, General
I never wrote anything about last week’s episode of Gilmore Girls. No particular reason – I just got sidetracked by snow and a rough week and a busy weekend. And here it is Tuesday already, and I haven’t written anything about last week.
Of course, with things progressing as they are, I [...]
Categories: For Theresa
I don’t know if people who live in other places love their states the way I love North Carolina. I have never lived anywhere else. It’s in my blood, though, as cheesy as it sounds. I know my mother feels the same way, though I’ve never heard her say it. We love this state, everything [...]
Categories: General