Posts from the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

My Top Ten Most Read Authors

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Broke and the Bookish. Every week they post a new top ten list prompt and book bloggers respond with their lists. We don’t usually participate in these sorts of things, but this week was kind of a fun one and I was curious to see whether my most read authors corresponded to my favorite authors or if there were any surprises.

I decided to count books series as one book mainly because once a start a series, I feel compelled to finish it even if it is terrible. Here are my top 10 most read authors. Read more

Book Worm’s Life in Books: Short Stories

Just so you know right from the start, I am not a fan of short stories. In fact, if I was given the choice to read a 10 page short story or a 1000 page novel, I would choose the novel every time. And, if that novel was part of a series, well that’s even better!!

What I love about reading is escaping to another world, following characters as they grow and develop, and being immersed in every aspect of the fictional world. You can’t really find that in a short story.

So having spent most my life avoiding short stories, I am now finding them thrust upon me in the form of the 1001 Books to Read Before you Die. While there have been some gems amongst these the majority have not managed to change my original opinion.

The Good

The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Gilmore Perkings ★★★★★ – Essentially there is one character and only one location in this entire short story. The story shows a woman whose mental state is declining, she spends all her time in a room with yellow wallpaper where she visuals outside forces that are working against her. Seriously everyone should read this story and if you don’t like it well at least its short

The Garden Party ★★★★ Katherine Mansfield – This is the story of how a teenage girl from a privileged background discovers there is more to life that hats and cake.

The Bad (or the at least the not so good)

The Beggar Maid Alice Munro ★★★ – this is a billed as a novel but is actually a collection of short stories about two women Rose and her stepmother Flo.

Pricksongs and Descants Robert Coover ★★ Supposedly these stories are new takes on fairy tales but I spent most the book thinking WHAT!!

The Ugly (or at least the bizarre)

Amateurs Donald Barthelme  ★★★ – This is a collection of short stories which covers the full range or bizzare, boring, funny and interesting. My favourites were; Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby,The Captured Woman,Porcupines at the University and The New Member.

So how do you feel about short stories?

Winner of Giveaway & a few updates!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Yesterday we posted a guest review for a Life in Secrets by Sarah Helm. Congrats to Nicole R for winning a kindle copy of the book! I believe I have your email Nicole so I will send that along this evening. For those of you who want to try the book for yourself, you can find it here: A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII

In other news, we now have various ways you can follow our blog and we hope you check them out. You can follow the blog in various ways:

1. Facebook. We have a Facebook page that you can find here: The Reader’s Room Facebook page . Of course you can also find the link at any time in our sidebar. The Facebook page is mostly just content reposted from the blog although we occasionally add other images and content.
2. Pinterest. A supplement to the blog. We just started this but we have posts from the blog in addition to other book-related boards. You can find it here: The Reader’s Room Pinterest.
3. Twitter. This is my (Jen’s) twitter account but it’s mostly book-related info. We do post the blog links but also other book related news. You can find my account here.
4. Bloglovin – you can follow us there by clicking the link at the top.

And finally, thank you to all our loyal followers! We really appreciate your support and feedback and we hope you have been enjoying the blog. If you have any feedback about types of posts you like most, least, etc we are happy to hear them. Also, if you end up reading a book that you picked up from one of our blog reviews, we hope you stop by when you’re done and let us know what you thought of the book.

As a thank you to all of you we will be starting to award small gift cards to a randomly selected blog follower every 3-4 months (depending on how well our Amazon associates account does).

Happy Father’s Day

My husband and daughter several years ago. Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to all those wonderful dads out there! We hope your day is filled with joy, relaxation and good literature!

In honor of father’s day, we are listing our top literary fathers. Read more

Most underrated books?

This morning I read Buzzfeed’s list of “27 Seriously Underrated Books Every Book Lover Should read.” The list was linked to from Book Riot.

BuzzFeed is not a source I trust to guide my reading but nevertheless I found myself thinking about how readers define underrated.

You can find the whole list here. I’ve read quite a few of these books and I’m not sure that I would describe too many of them as underrated. Several were best sellers and a majority are rated highly on various platforms. Take for example, Night Circus. Pretty much everyone I know has read this book and the majority have rated it highly. It has an average rating of 4 stars on goodreads with over 320,000 ratings. Is this what qualifies as underrated by buzzfeed readers?

As many of you know, I’m also pretty picky (a.k.a snobby) when it comes to books and there are several on this list that would not make my list as books that “every book lover should read.” And not to be overly negative, I do think some on the list were strong but certainly not underrated.

Which books make my list? I’d probably need to dedicate some time to this question and may post my own list with Book Worm’s help in the near future. Off the top of my head, I can think of two books that make my list: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Ogawa and Animal’s people by Sinha. Animal’s people was a nominee for Man Booker Prize in 2007 but very few people seem to have read it. It has less than 2,500 ratings on goodreads (compared with over 320k of night circus) and an average rating of 3.81

I read quite a lot of books that lack popular appeal so I will work on coming up with my list to be posted in the next month.

What do you think of the list? Which books do you think should make the list?

Mother’s Day: Gifts for the Mom who loves to read

May 10th is Mother’s Day for those of us who live in the U.S. Need some inspiration for the mother in your life? Below we’ve compiled a list of recommended gifts with a range to cover all budgets.

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3 Books about Running for Marathon Monday

Boston Marathon 2014

I’m not a runner and never have been. I don’t think I have the discipline and while I enjoy cycling, swimming, sports, dancing and many other athletic activities, running makes me feel like I’m dying. But, I LOVE marathon monday. We live in the Massachusetts and every year we head to the sidelines to cheer on the runners. It’s a wonderful and festive event with people from all over the country cheering on the best runners from all over the world.  This year we’ll be cheering on several friends as well as lots of strangers!

In honor of one of my favorite holidays, I’ve posted a list of 3 books (below) for the runner (or want to be runner).

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1001 Book Review: The Shadow Line Joseph Conrad

The Shadow-Line by Joseph Conrad
First Published in: 1915
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find/Buy it here (for free):The Shadow Line (Illustrated)

Synopsis from Amazon: Written in 1915, The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea captain’s first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fever, and his deranged first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of a previous captain.

This is indeed a work full of ‘sudden passions’, in which Conrad is able to show how the full intensity of existence can be experienced by the man who, in the words of the older Captain Giles, is prepared to ‘stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience’. A subtle and penetrating analysis of the nature of manhood, The Shadow-Line investigates varieties of masculinity and desire in a subtext that counterpoints the tale’s seemingly conventional surface.

Book Worm’s Review

This is a novella told from the point of view of an older man looking back at a pivotal moment in his left when he crossed the shadow line between youth and adulthood.

The day he decides to quit his position as a first mate on a ship in the Orient and to return to England, he learns he is considered to be the only man able to captain a ship whose Captain recently died. Unable to resist, the young man travels to join his new crew only to discover that things are not what they seem.

His first voyage is marred with set backs: the crew suffer from Malaria, there is no wind to travel, and his first mate appears to be under the delusion that the previous captain had tried to kill them all.

The novel was first published in 1915 as a serial in New York’s Metropolitan Magazine.

Having previously read Heart of Darkness I was expecting this to be a struggle to read. However, it was a solid straightforward narrative with light-hearted moments as well as tension. What really came across was how the unnamed narrator still felt guilty for events he had no control over.