Surprisingly violent but still somehow light mystery, but the mix of the kind of cosy premise and the tough guy LA thing felt off to me.
Funny, sad, and interesting book set in a Delhi call center on Thanksgiving. As increasingly anxious, desperate, and rude Americans call the appliance support line, 6 workers open up to each other. Shyam and Vroom realize their boss is taking advantage of them, beautiful Esha thinks about whether she can really make it as a model, Radhika sees her traditional marriage and in-laws in a new light, and Priyanka, Shyam's ex-girlfriend, shocks everyone by telling them that she's accepted the offer of an arranged marriage to a Microsoft programmer living in Seattle.
Strange and lovely little book. 40 very short vignettes, each set about one of the times the Thames was known to have frozen over- each vaguely, tenuously linked to each other, but each very much a meditative quiet little glimpse into the London of that day. Made me very curious about late medieval bridge construction, which isn't something you get to think about every day.
Apparently after 1831, when Old London Bridge (built 1209), was destroyed, the dredging and shape of the new construction changed the flow of the river enough that it is unlikely to freeze over again (unless that whole Gulf Stream thing thing happens.)
Well, this was the second third-person plural office life narrative I've read recently, and this was no Then We Came To The End, which wildly observant readers of this blog will remember I chose as the best Adult Fiction I read in 2008.
An absolutely intense short novel that has left me reeling. I feel like I did when I was fifteen and read No Exit or The Stranger- like I just read ideas, interestingly presented, that will linger and forever tinge the way I think about things. That sounds so overly dramatic (and fifteen!) but really, that was a hell of a little book.
Oh this was lovely and only added to my longing for old french farmhouse-type life, what with the bicycles and baguettes and wine and truffles and old stone walls with white plasterwork and bright blue shutters...
Ok mystery. I actually guessed the villain very early in this one, which is either a bad sign for the mystery or proof that reading 8 million mysteries gets you better at guessing the baddie. Foxglove again though? I swear, I'm going to need a tag for all the mysteries where the murder is done by digitalis.
Fantastic YA. Near-future (2015) UK decides to begin rationing carbon, after the Great Storm, in an effort to lead the world in reducing emissions. 16 year old Laura Brown wants to help but at the same time, giving up things like long showers and cell-phone minutes are painful. Her friends become increasingly radicalised, while her family falls apart. This was really so well done- the mulitcultural Britain and the increased government powers seemed very possible if not here already. The riots and the use of military force against civilians... this was really good.
Absolutely devastating book about early onset Alzheimers. Alice Howland is a professor of Linguistics at Harvard and when memory problems begin intruding on her life, she assumes tha menopause is causing disorientation, forgetfulness, and so on. This was stunning, and heartbreaking, and terrifying.
Funny collection of newspaper columns. Don't know what else there is really to say about this. I'm surprised I liked it (hell, I'm surprised I picked it up) because I am usually not taken by "Southern" anything, but this chick really was funny and I agree- stop dressing your six year old like a skank.
I had hoped for a lot more emphasis on how to combine the green flowers- I thought the title hinted at pics of containers and vases full of delish green flowers, but the page-by-pages were of individual green and green-tinged flowers, with horticultural details and information on growth habits. Gorgeous pictures, and so on, but so many of the plants were outside my zone, and I really had hoped for a more florist-oriented book, so I was a bit disappointed.
Once again, I found Amy Adams incredibly charming in what must have been a difficult role, and Frances McDormand was wonderful. This was surprisingly gripping, and I really wonder why it didn't get on to my radar before now- I really liked it.
This was absolutely stunningly good. God, the precision, the delicacy, the impeccable eye and ear.
Interesting yet flawed YA sci-fi. Near future dystopia, and people who survived the Flood are living in weather-controlled domed areas. All must swear allegiance to Mother Earth, a fascist leader who drugs political opponents into zombie-like states, and who is misleading the populace in order to control all aspects of society. Honor, a recent refugee, and her parents already don't fit it, but life becomes much harder for her when her parents are Disappeared for being Unpredictable.
This was a fun, fast-paced read, and a very satisfying look at real life in fine restaurants. I felt that Dalia Jurgensen was very lucky, as she seemed to kind of fall into her first position, but she obviously works her a** off wherever she worked, and her deserts sounded heavenly. It was funny to read about her reaction when restaurant critic Ruth Reichl came to a restaurant she worked at, having listened to her Garlic and Sapphires, and of course I was fascinated when she wrote about working for Martha Stewart.
This was just impossible to put down! Graduate student Connie Goodwin is looking for a great topic and primary sources for her PhD, and has to spend the summer clearing out her grandmother's house in Marblehead Massachusetts. While there, she finds things that lead her into researching events that took place during the Salem witch trials, and the book weaves back and forth through time, telling the story of Deliverance Dane and the Salem witches.
Legal thriller. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. Liked Patrick the surfer, was ok with the lawyer and the cop.
Disney. So, of course, hideous, but at the same time, delicious. like a freakin poison twinkie.
Sweet book in the S.A.S.S. YA series. In this one, Calista goes to Stockholm, learns Swedish, and finds herself. Lots of herring and so forth.
Really good historical fiction. Set in Andover, Massachusetts during the Salem witch trials. Sarah Carrier must stuggle to survive as her family, always outsiders, are targeted and her mother Martha is convicted of being a witch.
So cute! I don't know how I never read this before. Lovely, sweet story of friendship between 5 year olds in a disappeared small-town America.
Absolutely incredible book- wonderful.
This was fantastic. I loved seeing the original screen tests and I thought the new music written for the film was perfect. Some of the clips are just haunting- Ann and Edie, especially, and I couldn't believe what a perfect Coke commercial Lou Reed's clip would be.
So-so murder mystery. Got great reviews, but I thought it wasn't that great. Even I guessed the bloody killer, and I think the raves it's getting are because maybe the reviewers think that setting a 'traditional' mystery in 'edgy' artsy Brooklyn might attrack younger readers to the genre.
I can't imagine why I requested this book, but up it came for me as a hold, so I read it.
Further adventures of Greg Heffley. Still funny, not as fresh.
Entertaining but disturbing book. Rouse is the parent-school liason at a very expensive prep school, but the parents are loathsome, the administration turns willing blind eyes to cruelty, and Rouse is such a fawning sycophant that he can't stand himself even as he kisses the Mommie's asses.
Fun movie about the growth of the California wine industry and the great achievement the growers made when US wine beat French wine in the Paris wine tasting of 1976.
Odd, kind of funny but not very funny movie about businessmen trying to drive each other crazy.
Odd book. Part chick-lit, part murder-mystery, unlikeable characters, a deus ex-machina cameo from Tom Cruise- it should have been awful, but was somehow kind of fun and rollicking.
Caldecott winner picture book. Aimed at very very young ones.
Fun and clever mystery! I loved Death of a Cosy Writer so much that we're doing it for the mystery book group at the library, so I was really looking forward to this one, which was fantastic. Fair-play mysteries, with a lot of style. Also, i loved the ripping on the stereotypes of the writers, and the phrase "womjep" has to become part of my daily vocabulary- it's for woman-in-jeopardy suspense fiction, like Nora Roberts et al.
Now, this was a stunner. After reading A Couple of Boys Have The Best Week Ever, I was despairing, and on the verge of having a small meltdown.
Caldecott honor book, and I couldn't stand it. I felt it was disrespectful (get off my lawn!!!) and although the last bits were lovely, I felt it pandered so to the Diary of A Wimpy Kid demographic that it made it unlikeable, let alone lovable.
