A young girl uses stolen books to distract herself from the reality of living in Nazi Germany in WWII while hiding a Jewish man in her basement.
It is incredibly difficult to know how to review this book. The second half moves along at a much quicker pace and with much higher stakes.… Read the rest
The book is a collection of two sets of stories — the first set are Kinsey Millhone series set throughout the Alphabet series in time; the second set are about Kit Blue.
The first part, with Kinsey Millhone, includes an introduction about how she created Kinsey (4/5), nine shortstories, and a conclusion about the history of the genre of the hard-boiled PI (3/5).… Read the rest
Kottler reflects on the literature and personal experiences as a psychologist about the elements that lead people to not only make changes in their life but also sustain those changes over the long-term.
I had the pleasure of hearing Kottler speak as an honoured guest at my wife’s university graduation ceremony, and he intrigued me enough on the subject of “change” — what we know and what we don’t know — that I bought his book.… Read the rest
The author is a book reviewer for the Washington Post; this is the story of his life up until graduation from university.
Dirda was recommended to me by a colleague from work, whose appetites for reading are far more literary than mine. He actually recommended Bound to Please, which is a collection of Dirda’s reviews of more literary prose from throughout history, but I tripped over this book first.… Read the rest
This book is an anthology of women’s experiences in Canada during World War II. The anthology is a collection of first-person narratives from 57 women who served in various branches of the armed forces, auxiliaries, private industry in Canada during World War II. Each of the narratives have similar chronologies and approach – what the women were doing before the war, how they joined the Armed Forces or supporting occupation, their experiences during the war (both personal and professional), their life-in-brief after the war, and, finally, a chance for them to pass some judgement on “what did it all mean” for them or for women in general.… Read the rest
A mixed-tone argument that you can be “addicted” to reading and owning books, with some examples of book hoarders from years-gone-by.
There are some really good “humour” lists, kind of like a Letterman top ten list for:
Schwarz starts with a commentary by a Chinese scholar that some people are handicapped by reading too much, and not thinking enough about what they read. From there, she looks at the books she has read in her life and the role they have played. It is not a heavy analytical tone throughout, but rather a personal commentary on the books that have been important to her in her life, and the elements of her life that took place in and around books.… Read the rest
The first five years of the Blue Jays, as covered by a female sportswriter.
Many thoughts assailed me. Sure, I had heard she was nice, came from a respectable family, etc., but we had never met before. What if I didn’t like her in *that* way?… Read the rest
