I haven’t thought about Judy Blume for a long time. That is, until today when a friend who recently returned from Key West told me a great story about her. Little did I know that Blume owned a book store in Key West. It’s called Books and Books. While in Key West, my friend visited the book story and asked a nice woman if Judy
Ron Charles, Book critic for the Washington Post, asked his Book Club members to describe to him what most annoy them in books. I list a few of them below: –Dreams (Worked for Dickens and Shakespeare, but apparently many readers don’t like dream sequences.) –Typos and grammatical errors –Overused and pretentious words (lugubrious, lubricious and preternatural to name a few) –Excessive length (Of books, paragraphs,
3. In which American novel is Daisy married to Tom but loved by Jay? 4. If Eponin loves Marius but Marius loves Cosette—which French novel are you reading? 5. Which Shakespeare character finally declares his love with the words, “I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?” 6. Who thinks she loves Ashley, marries Charles (who dies) and
“Truth is stranger than ficiton” is a worn out statement, but it can be remarkably true. Such is the case in the following two books. These books are NOT historical fiction. The first book was written by Ilyon Woo, a writer whose research for the book was funded by National Endowment for the Humanities. Woo received a PhD in English from Columbia University. Master Slave
In the December 21, 2022, edition of BookBub, Hannah Reynolds writes that she read 82 books in 2022. Wow. That’s a lot of reading. She reports that she reads ALL the time–on the subway, when she wakes up in the morning, when she goes to sleep at night. Out of the 82 books she read, she lists her five favorites so I thought I would
Wylie and her husbad purchased a home on Kiawah Island in 2020. I recently met Wylie Small, a part time Kiawah resident who also happens to be an author! Her specialty is English history. Wylie sent me the following background information: My love of English history developed when I began to work on my family’s genealogy, about fifteen years ago. Both of my parents had
The House in the Pines, Ana Reyes Ana Reyes has just realized a writer’s dream. After her first novel was published, it was chosen as the Reese Witherspoon book for January! Amazing, right? Now, of course, it’s on the NYT best seller list. Who is Ana Reyes and what is her book about? Ana Reyes received an MFA from LSU in 2015, at which time
The House of Eve, by Sadeqa Joahnson, tells the story of two American women during the 1950’s. One lives in Philadelphia and the other in Washington, D.C. Their lives intersect as they struggle to find their place in a world where the odds seem stacked against them. Johnson takes episodes from her own life and weaves in historical characters for a very engaging novel. River
This book was written by Jens Andersen, a writer of biographies who was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1955. He had rare access to the inner workings of the global Lego company and interviewed members of the Danish family that founded it. The book contains rare photos that date back to the early days of the company when Legos were made in a small carpentry
Although it’s a little late to be talking about some of the best books of 2022, here we go anyway– “Book of the Month” best of the best for the year Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabriell Zevin National Book Awards Fiction–The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty Non-fiction–South to America, Imari Perry Book Browse Award Winners best fiction–Horse, Geraldine Brooks best non-fiction–In Love, Amy Bloom best
