Aug 5
Welcome to our new recurring post: Book vs. movie! Unlike our other recurring themes, this won’t be scheduled for a set date but rather will be posted when the inspiration strikes. We’re book lovers so chances are we’ll be biased toward the books, but there are several cases we can think off when we’ve preferred the movie to the book. I’ll start us off with our first battle pairing. We hope you chime in with your thoughts!
Aug 3
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Published: 2007
Awards:Pulitzer Prize for fiction (2008)
Reviewed by Jen and Book Worm
Find it here: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
We recently featured this book on our Love it or Hate it post and since neither of us had read it. We both felt that we should review it and weigh in on the debate with our opinions. Check out whether we loved or hated this book. Read more
Aug 1
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 month we discussed Stranger in A Strange Land by Heinlein. The results were close with the “Love its” taking 56%. I was the “Hate it” reviewer (to be fair I didn’t hate the book but I hated elements of it) and Charisma was the “Love it” reviewer. Many thanks to Charisma for helping us out last minute.
This month’s selection is also on Boxall’s 1001 List of Books to Read before you Die. So the question is… do you Love it or Hate it? Continue reading to find see our two reviews. Make sure to vote in our poll at the bottom of the post even if you haven’t read it. Read more
Jul 31
It’s time for our monthly recap! Find out which books were favorites, which were duds, and which ones we plan to read the following month. We’ll end our wrap up with a calendar of book-related events/facts from the Month of July and we’ll highlight our upcoming August content. This month, one randomly selected follower (email or wordpress follower) will win a $10 amazon gift card. Scroll down to see if you are the winner. The prize is only awarded if you contact us with your email address so make sure to check these monthly recaps each month to see if you won! We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read in July and what you look forward to reading in August.
Read more
Jul 29
Today at noon, they announced the books that made it onto the Man Booker Prize longlist. Yesterday we made some predictions. Check out the longlist books and see how we did with our predictions. Read more
Jul 28
Tomorrow at noon BST, the books on the longlist for the Man Booker Prize will be announced. The Man Booker Prize launched in 1969 with the goal of trying to promote and celebrate the best novel of the year written in English and published in the U.K. The winner gets £50,000 and a nice bump in sales worldwide. Last year’s winner was Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Tomorrow, they announce the longlist. The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 15 September 2015 and the winner will be announced on Tuesday 13 October 2015. Trying to predict which books make it onto the list is like trying to predict the weather but we’re going to try. According to the rules, the eligibility criteria are as follows:
Any novel originally written in English and published in the UK in the year of the prize, regardless of the nationality of their author. The novel must be an original work in English (not a translation) and must not be self-published.
Here are a few my predictions (in no particular order) for books that may make it on to the list. Full disclosure: my predictions are based largely on the buzz that some of these books have gotten as many have yet to be published and I have not read most of them. Read more
Jul 28
Welcome to our second Book-Wine Pairing: a recurring category that combines two of my favorite things! This month I’m featuring a rather tenuous pairing for the book Independent People by Halldór Laxness — a pairing that is probably based more on my interest for trying a certain wine than anything else. Keep reading to find out more about the book and the wine. Read more
Jul 27
The Man who Loved Children by Christina Stead
Published in: 1940
Reviewed by: Jen
Rating: 4 stars
Find it here: The Man Who Loved Children: A Novel
The Man Who Loved Children is a family saga set in the 1940s. The Pollit family is a dysfunctional one on all levels. Henny and Sam Pollit are trapped in a loveless and unhappy marriage and their discord seeps down to their children. Henny appears mentally unbalanced, unloving, and unsympathetic. At first, she seems to be the villain in the family. She screams and threatens her children and generally behaves in an appalling manner but, as events unfold, we gain a clearer understanding and empathy for Henny who is powerless and trapped by her surroundings. Family patriarch Sam Pollit (who is based on the author’s own father) seems jolly and loving toward his family but, in reality, his childishly patronizing manner and lack of self-awareness reveal him to be far from the story’s hero. He talks to his family in a form of baby-talk, at times singing and rhyming and suppressing any signs of autonomy or independence in his children. Sam is an idealist who can’t see past his own ideals to recognize the squalor and unhappiness of his own family. Read more
Jul 26
It’s time for a Summer Challenge update! Every two weeks we will be posting an update on the challenge along with some ideas for book locations. Still want to join? We will keep the challenge sign up open until the end of this month. You can learn more about our summer challenge here.
In each update, we will give an honorable mention to the reader who posts our favorite book-location pairing since time of last update. Keep reading to find out who is in the lead and to get some ideas for your book locations. Read more
Jul 24
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Published in: 2013
Awards: National Book Critics Award for Fiction (2013); International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by: Jen
Find it here: Americanah
Adichie has become one of my favorite authors. I loved Half of a Yellow Sun (reviewed earlier in the year here), Purple Hibiscus, and We Should All be Feminists. Her writing is always strongly intellectual but easily accessible. Adichie doesn’t just write good stories. She writes good stories with powerful socio-political and cultural messages. So, I guess it is no surprise that I really enjoyed Americanah. Find out why Americanah makes into my list of favorite books read in 2015 (thus far)… Read more
Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 