Jan 30
Before we became parents, my husband and I used to go to see movies every weekend. Now I mostly binge watch netflix episodes of Orange is the New Black. This year quite a few movie adaptations of books are coming out. Here are 10 book to movies coming out in 2015, ranked by order in which I’d like to see them (most to least appealing).
Read more
Jan 28
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Published: Oct 2012
Reviewed by: Jen
★★★
After losing his job in web design, Clay Jannon accepts a position as a clerk for the overnight shift at a 24-hour bookstore. He soon discovers that not all is what it seems in the bookstore. Discovering one clue after another, Jannon gets pulled into an adventure with secret societies, hipsters, and the search for a mystery hidden within books. The adventure is one that highlights the conflict between new technologies (ebooks, etc) and the old (print books).
I sometimes feel like I’m the odd person out when I read certain books. This book gets amazing reviews almost across the board. The New York Times writes that it is “eminently enjoyable, full of warmth and intelligence.” NPR writes, “One of the most thoughtful and fun reading experiences you’re likely to have this year.” That was not my experience. Okay, so I read much of this book while struggling with the flu and wasn’t really in the mindset for having fun. However, I had read almost 120 pages before I started to feel terrible and I was bored out of my mind for most of those pages. So what were my issues?
Upcoming content:
We’ve finally gotten organized and are posting a list of what will be our regular content for this blog. We know you don’t want your inboxes cluttered with posts so the plan is to post approximately 2-3 times a week. Check out our regular segments below and let us know if there’s anything else you’d like to read about here. Recurring content will be tagged by title of the segment to make it easier for you to search content.
Love it or Hate it!
Scheduled Post: 1st of every month
Have you ever noticed how some books seem to drive a wedge between people? You check the reviews and find almost no middle-of-the-road ratings. Instead people either seem to love it or hate it. Well, welcome to the new Love it or Hate it post category! Each month, we’ll pick one book to review. Two contributors will battle it out to convince you to pick it up or throw it out.
You, the reader will be able to vote on whether you loved or hated the book or, if you haven’t yet read the book, whether you feel driven to pick it up and read it lock it away in the dusty “never to be read” shelves.
Coming soon, on February 1, 2015: Atonement by Ian McEwan. And, for our very first Love it or Hate it, the first person to comment on that post with a “I want it” will win a used (but in mint condition) copy of the book.
Jan 24
I have to admit that I’m a lousy twitter user. I barely tweet or retweet anything and sometimes months will pass before I even look at my account. But as I sit at home semi-delirious watching Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang for the millionth time (my 4 year old’s favorite movie and my husband and I are both too sick fight the screen time battle), I’ve decided to take a look at it again.
There are a lot of great twitter accounts for book lovers. Below are a few that I like.
Tomorrow is National Readathon day. Do you plan to participate? Sponsored by a variety sites with multiple locations across the U.S. participating. Lots of venues are participating and you can find locations listed at Goodreads, National Book Foundation, or Penguin books. Penguin has a nice search list by state of Readathon activites. Read more about it here.
Coming Soon…
Keep checking the Challenges tab for updates. Over the course of the year, i’ll be posting some challenges and/or games for my readers. Occasional prizes will be available for some of these challenges.
Until then, feel free to post any ideas for challenges that you would like to see here.
Jan 22
4/5 stars (2 stars for overall enjoyment)
Ulysses is considered to THE modernist novel. Divided into 18 episodes, the novel is loosely based on Homer’s the Odyssey. Events and characters from the Odyssey are transformed into events and characters within a 24-hour period in Dublin in the early 1900s. The majority of the novel uses stream-of-consciousness and follows protagonist Leopold Bloom who represents Odysseus. However, each episode uses a different type of technique and much of it seems chaotic and unstructured on first read. Within the book you’ll find an episode written in the style of a play, one episode written as a series of questions and answers, one written as a series of hallucinations, one in a pompous, old fashioned style, and one episode representing the gestation of the English language –where Joyce starts off with more archaic styles then ends with slang all within the same chapter.
Welcome to my book blog! I hope you join me as I make my way through Boxall’s 1001 Books to Read Before you Die list. My goal for 2015 is to read 125 books. I have a variety of other personal reading challenges that I’ll write about later. Although one main focus is the 1001 book list, I do plan to read a mix of other books too. I’ve found that Boxall’s list consists of a lot of very depressing books so for my own mental health, I like to sprinkle in a lot of other types of books into the mix.
This is my first attempt at a blog and I have some ideas for how it will ultimately look but i’m looking for your feedback on what sorts of things you’d like to see here. So far, I’m envisioning the following types of posts.
I’m thinking that ultimately several of these types of posts would be done on a schedule. For example, a monthly children’s corner post, a monthly guest blog, and a weekly book review. Then the random posts would be probably posted when I have something to write about.
I’d love to get all your thoughts on what type of things you’d like to see in a book blog. Which potential topics (listed above do you like? Not like? would like to see?). Please send me your comments and feedback so I can work on getting this up and running in a way that works best!
jenp27
Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 