Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
The Waterworks
by E.L. Doctorow
this book suffered mightily from me having previously read Caleb Carr’s excellent novel The Alienist. These two books hearken back to roughly the same time and place, and even share a plot structure of a newspaperman’s recollection of a mystery long since solved, but Carr’s story is so much more finely crafted, engaging, [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Book Review by autumnrouse
Monday, August 4th, 2008
The Master Butchers Singing Club
by Louise Erdrich
somehow, with this book, i felt the setting most particularly a character. the spare and arid emotional lives of these people are played out in a setting that is flat and lonesome and empty, yet still sustains life.
our main character Delphine is a woman out of her place, yet contented there in strange [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Book Review by autumnrouse
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
the rain before it falls
By Jonathan Coe
this book is one of the loveliest i have come across in a good long while. i mean this not only in the sense that it contains a moving sweet and poignant story, but in the physical manifestation of of its book-ness. i went on about this at length last week when i [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Book Review by autumnrouse
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
Tuesday Thingers: Recommendations
Tuesday Thingers
Today’s topic: Recommendations. Do you use LT’s recommendations feature? Have you found any good books by using it? Do you use the anti-recommendations, or the “special sauce” recommendations? How do you find out about books you want to read?
i will say, i wanted this to be a feature i would get a lot of [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Creativization, bookery, tuesday thingers by autumnrouse
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
booklust
i have it. bad.
this was reinforced last night when i picked up my latest random acquisition from the library; a book called The Rain Before it Falls by Jonathan Coe. this book is not only enjoyable to read, with a breathtakingly lovely premise and resonant singing prose, but it is a pleasure to touch and [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Happy Making, acquisition, bookery by autumnrouse
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
Tuesday Thingers: Book Swapping
Today’s topic: Book-swapping. Do you do it? What site(s) do you use? How did you find out about them? What do you think of them? Do you use LT’s book-swapping column feature for information on what to swap? Do you participate in any of the LT communities that discuss bookswapping, like the Bookmooch group for [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in bookery, tuesday thingers by autumnrouse
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Tuesday Thingers: My Summer Vacation
Since we’re past the Fourth of July and the summer season has officially started, what are your plans for the summer? Vacations, trips? Trips that involve reading? Reading plans? If you’re going somewhere, do you do any reading to prepare? Do you read local literature as part of your trip? Have you thought about using [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in tuesday thingers by autumnrouse
Friday, June 27th, 2008
i’m 0 for 4 so far this week
i went to the library on monday and picked out like 8 books. so far, all of them have sucked.
admittedly, some of my reasoning wasn’t fabulous in terms of selection criteria; i put far too much weight on the cover of a book sometimes, but i usually have a better record than this. i just [...]