jenp27

Dec 21

Kids’ Corner: Top Ten Books

There always is a surge of top ten lists at year-end, and we did our part last week. But The New York Times, Washington Post, and even our effort don’t hold a candle to the top ten list of my 5-year old daughter. E picked out the top 10 books she read in 2015. Keep reading to find out what she selected and why.

To say that E has a lot of books is an understatement. I believe she inherited my book addiction. E also loves playing book-related games for the blog and was excited to get to create her own top ten list. How did we do this? We first laid out all her books on the floor of her room. Then she selected her 10 favorite. Finally, she lined then up in descending order from most to least favorite. Here are are top ten and the reasons she gave for their making it on to her list. Read more

Dec 18

3 Comments

1001 Book Review: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

I may well be the last person on earth to read this book but I’m going to write up this review in case any of you are contemplating a reread. Find out what we thought of it and let us know what your opinion of the book. Read more

Dec 16

2 Comments

Our Top Ten Books

In the last few months various outlets have been publishing their top books of 2015. We thought we’d join in with the top ten books we read in 2015 and our top 5 books published in 2015. Find out which books made our lists and scroll down for links to a number of other “best of 2015 lists.” Read more

Dec 15

4 Comments

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

Although we won’t be competing for prizes, Book Worm and I will be participating in our winter scavenger hunt (because it’s fun). If you want to join us, sign up and read the instructions here. For my first task I tried to combine reading challenges by also selecting a 1001 book. I started with item #1: Read a book by an author who shares your birthday. I was born on May 27 along with Dashiell Hammett. So I read the Maltese Falcon. Here’s I thought…

Indiespensable Book Subscription: Box #56

In October I received my first Indiespensable box, a book subscription service from Powell’s bookstore. You can read that review here. A few weeks ago my second box arrived and I’m happy to announce that I continue to love the service. Keep reading to see what I got and find out why this box was so great. Read more

Dec 8

6 Comments

Scavenger Hunt Challenge Update: Join the challenge!

We are officially one week into our Winter reading challenge and approximately 1/4 of the items have been revealed. Have you decided which item(s) you will be picking? Keep reading to see how you can join us and to see some of the items revealed thus far. Read more

Dec 7

6 Comments

Read Around the World: Wales

The next stop on our world tour of reading is Wales! This month, we have a special guest contributor: Louise. Louise is from Wales and runs the wonderful blog book a week. You should check out it! She will be sharing some fun facts about her country, Welsh literature, and her personal recommendations for books to help immerse you in your “travels.” I’m especially excited to feature Wales as it is home to the book lover’s paradise Hay-on-Wye. I’ll hand it over to Louise to tell you more…

Love it or Hate it? The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

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. Welcome to the Love it or Hate it post! Each month, we’ll pick one book to review and two contributors will battle it out to convince you to pick it up or throw it out. Last time we discussed The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt. For the first time since starting this feature, the “Hate it/don’t want to read it” people won with 58% of the vote! Many thanks to our reviewers for their awesome reviews. Our very own Book Worm was the Love it Reviewer and Zombie Kitten was our Hate it Reviewer.

This month’s selection is yet another of Boxall’s 1001 Books to Read Before you Die: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. Read the reviews and let us know whether either of the reviewers managed to convince you. I do have strong feelings about this book but I’ll leave it up to you to guess whether I loved it or hated it (I was not one of the reviewers). Read more

Dec 1

3 Comments

Reader’s Room Scavenger Hunt

scavenger hunt

It’s official! Today is the start of our winter reading challenge. We hope that many of you join us over the next 3.5 months for our Reader’s Room Scavenger Hunt. Each day in December we will post a fun item or task for you to tackle. You then have until March 15 to find the perfect book, read it, provide a short review, and provide photo evidence. Read as many books as you want for the challenge. Reading even one book will qualify you to win cool bookish prizes. Keep reading to learn more. Read more

Nov 30

23 Comments

Terrible Reviews of Great Books: Orwell’s 1984

There is no such thing as a universally loved book. Each month, we’ll feature a book from Time Magazine‘s list of the best 100 English language novels of all time. From the mean to the funny, to the downright absurd, we will highlight some of the strange reasons why some people hate these great reads. This month’s book is 1984 by George Orwell. I have to admit that I last read this in high school and it wasn’t my favorite book, but it certainly merited better than some of these 1-star reviews from Amazon. Keep reading to see why some people hate this book. Read more