Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout is out with a new book that is a companion work to her Booker Nominated novel, My Name is Lucy Barton. Keep reading to see what I thought of this book. Read more
Posts by imabookwormy
May 2
3 Comments
Non 1001 Book Review: The Evening Road by Laird Hunt
While I’m away on vacation, Book Worm has been busy reading and reviewing books for all of us. We’ll be posting several of those reviews in the next few weeks. This week, Book Worm reviews The Evening Road by Laird Hunt. Keep reading to see what she thought. Read more
Apr 6
The Sunshine Blogger Award
Veronica of The Thousand Book Project nominated us for the Sunshine Blogger Award! To be perfectly honest, we don’t normally respond to these (although we appreciate the sentiment) because they can clutter up the blog and we have so many book reviews we try to squeeze in. However, we’re making a decision to respond to one of these per year (thanks in no small part to us both being consumed by Infinite Jest and having fewer book reviews to post in the last month). Thank you to Veronica for thinking of us. You should check out her blog if you aren’t following it already. We love her blog.
The rules of the award are: 1) Thank the person who nominated you, 2) answer 11 questions posed by the person who nominated you, and 3) nominate 11 bloggers to receive the award.
We love Veronica’s questions so without further ado here are the questions and our answers:
1. If you could meet one person, alive or dead, who would it be?
BW: Margaret Atwood the woman is a genius.
Jen: David Foster Wallace. I have s many questions.
2. Do you hoard books or do you buy/borrow, read, and then let them go?
BW: I am a buy, borrow and let them go type of reader. Only books I really love get to stay on the book shelf once read.
Jen: I buy/borrow too many books to hold on to all of them. Like Book Worm, I only keep the books I either envision rereading or that I want to save for my daughter when she grows up. The rest go into my Little Free Library.
3. Do your books look read when you’re done with them or do you keep them in pristine condition?
BW: My books definitely look read!
Jen: Pristine condition. I’m ridiculous with the books I read. I don’t bend the covers, don’t dog ear pages, and when I’m not reading them, I place them between heavy items so the covers don’t get wrinkles.
4. If you couldn’t use your phone for a day, would you panic or would you feel free?
BW: One day I would be fine…I think.
Jen: Free. I use my phone way too much but I’d like the freedom of leaving it behind for the day.
5. Could you live without social media?
BW: Yes
Jen: No. I am constantly on social media. I have instagram, Litsy, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads accounts. I grew up in both England and Costa Rica and my social media accounts are how I stay in touch with my international friends.
6. If you could recommend one tv show for people to watch, what would it be and why?
BW: Nashville. I love the stories and the music and Deacon Claybourne is sooo hot.
Jen: The Wire. It’s smart, realistic, and all-around the best tv show I have ever watched. I’ve heard it described by some as a visual novel due to its amazing dialogue and brilliantly written scripts.
7. If an author, or other artist, makes a comment you don’t agree with, does it change how you feel about their work?
BW: I would like to say no but have never encountered this situation.
Jen: I think it depends on the comment. I don’t have to agree with authors to enjoy their work but if they came out with something really sexist/racist/homophobic, it would probably change how much I would want to buy future novels.
8. Sweet or salty?
BW: both together I adore sweet and salty popcorn.
Jen: Sweet.
9. Romance or adventure?
BW: both.
Jen: Adventure. Romance is my least favorite genre.
10. Breakfast for breakfast or breakfast for dinner?
BW: breakfast for breakfast.
Jen: I’d rather have dinner or lunch for breakfast. I’m not a big breakfast person. I love coffee but I don’t love other traditional breakfast foods (eggs, cereal, pancakes, etc).
11. If you could pick one person to narrate every audiobook, who would it be?
BW: I have never listened to an audio book and don’t really intend to, so no comment.
Jen: Neil Gaiman. I’d listen to him narrate a phone book.
We are not going to officially nominate any other bloggers to answer questions but we would like to mention a few blogs that we think you should check out and deserve all the awards (in addition to Veronica’s blog mentioned above). We follow and love quite a few blogs but here are a few of our very favorites:
BookerTalk
Naomi from Consumed by Ink
The Book Stop
What I think about when I think about reading
Any blogger who would like to participate in answer questions, feel free to join with the following questions:
- Favorite place to read?
- Ebook or paper book?
- Which book character would you most like to meet and why?
- Have you ever seen a film that was better than the book, which film and why?
- Which fictional place do you most want to visit.
- Tea or coffee?
- Who is your author crush?
- Literary pet peeves?
- What do you do when you’re not reading?
- First book that made you cry?
- Last book you bailed on?
Apr 3
Non 1001 Book Review: White Tears Hari Kunzru
We’re starting off the month with a book that gets a rare 5-star rating. Book Worm reviews White Tears by Hari Kunzru. Keep reading to see what she thought. Read more
Mar 31
March Monthly Recap
Time for our March 2017 monthly recap. Find out which books were favorites and which were duds. We’ll end our wrap up with a a list of books due out this month and a glimpse of our upcoming content. We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read this month and what you look forward to reading in April and the rest of 2017.
Mar 21
Non 1001 Book Review: The Lonely Hearts Hotel Heather O’Neill
After a few weeks focused on wrapping up our winter challenge and setting up the spring challenge, we have finally got back in the groove of reviewing books again. Book Worm and I have been consumed by both challenges and reading through Infinite Jest which is tons of fun but impacting all our other reading. Book Worm is leading us off with a review of The Lonely Hearts Hotel, a book that others either seem to love or hate. Which side do you think you will fall into? Check out BW’s review. Read more
Non 1001 Book Review: The Devil’s Prayer Luke Gracias
Looking for a thrilling escapist read? Book Worm may have the book for you. Check out her review of The Devil’s Prayer by Luke Gracias. One reviewer calls it a “faustian tale on steroids.” Read more
Feb 23
Non 1001 Book Review: The Terranauts by Boyle
The Terranauts by T.C Boyle
Published in: 2016
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★.5
Find it here: The Terranauts
This ARC was provided by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis from Goodreads: A powerful, affecting and hilarious deep-dive into human behavior in an intimate and epic story of science, society, sex, and survival, set in the early 1990s, from one of the greatest American novelists today.
It is 1994, and in the desert near Tillman, Arizona, forty miles from Tucson, a grand experiment involving the future of humanity is underway. As climate change threatens the earth, eight scientists, four men and four women dubbed the “Terranauts,” have been selected to live under glass in E2, a prototype of a possible off-earth colony. Their sealed, three-acre compound comprises five biomes—rainforest, savanna, desert, ocean and marsh—and enough wildlife, water, and vegetation to sustain them.
Closely monitored by an all-seeing Mission Control, this New Eden is the brainchild of eco-visionary Jeremiah Reed, aka G.C.—“God the Creator”—for whom the project is both an adventure in scientific discovery and a momentous publicity stunt. In addition to their roles as medics, farmers, biologists, and survivalists, his young, strapping Terranauts must impress watchful visitors and a skeptical media curious to see if E2’s environment will somehow be compromised, forcing the Ecosphere’s seal to be broken—and ending the mission in failure. As the Terranauts face increased scrutiny and a host of disasters, both natural and of their own making, their mantra: “Nothing in, nothing out,” becomes a dangerously ferocious rallying cry.
Told through three distinct narrators—Dawn Chapman, the mission’s pretty young ecologist; Linda Ryu, her bitter, scheming best friend passed over for E2; and Ramsay Roothorp, E2’s sexually irrepressible Wildman—The Terranauts brings to life an electrifying, pressured world in which connected lives are uncontrollably pushed to the breaking point. With characteristic humor and acerbic wit, T. C. Boyle indelibly inhabits the perspectives of the various players in this survivalist game, probing their motivations and illuminating their integrity and fragility to illustrate the inherent fallibility of human nature itself. Read more
Feb 10
Read Around the World: South Africa
Our next stop in our world tour of literature is South Africa. Join us as we explore some of what South Africa has to offer in terms of literature and find out which book we selected. We hope you will help us in generating a comprehensive list of South African literature for our readers. Scroll down to the bottom to check out a slide show of photos from beautiful South Africa, courtesy of my friend Oliver and his travels. Read more
Non 1001 Book Review: Heartless Marissa Meyer
Do you love a good retelling? This may be the book for you. Check out Book Worm’s review of Marissa Meyer’s latest retelling. This time she takes on Alice in Wonderland. Read more
jenp27
Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 