|
|  |
|
This post is from from my other blog here
|
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Why didn’t I think of this before?
 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows. Have you read it? Let’s discuss!
If you haven’t read it yet, be warned: there may be plot spoilers in the comments below. Hurry up and read it so you can come chat with us here!
All those marvelous personalities. Who was your favorite?
|
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Well, June’s just whizzing past, isn’t it? I must have picked about thirty tomatoes this afternoon. And that’s not counting the ones I harvested at Farm Town.
A moment to hold: standing in the kitchen with Rose, eating sunwarmed tomatoes with fresh basil and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, while Rilla practiced snipping stray basil leaves.
A book I really enjoyed: the one Scott stole from me the other day, Shannon Hale’s The Actor and the Housewife. He finished it quickly and I got my turn. It’s a unique sort of book; I’ve never read anything like it—and yet it felt comfortably ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here 
Gazing adoringly at his daddy, of course.
|
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Scott walked past in time to catch me giggling over the opening chapter of Shannon Hale’s new novel (for grownups), The Actor and the Housewife. He raised amused eyebrows at me.
“Here,” I said, thrusting the book at him, because that is what we do. “You have to read the first ten pages of this. It’s delightful.”
Ten minutes later, he’s the one reading and chuckling.
“How far are you?”
“Page thirteen. Did you get that far?”
“No, I was on eleven when I handed it to you.”
“Well, thirteen is the funniest bit yet.”
All well and good—but now he has disappeared, and my book along ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here We’ve been hearing about the health benefits of dark chocolate for a couple of years now—woowoo antioxidants, right? But have you read up on the subject? I hadn’t, until Jane insisted I order a copy of Rowan Jacobsen’s Chocolate Unwrapped: The Surprising Health Benefits of America’s Favorite Passion. Rowan, you recall, is the author of Fruitless Fall, the book on bee colony collapse I wrote so much about last month.
His chocolate book proved just as interesting and illuminating.
Published in 2003 (which is to say, on the cutting edge of the chocolate-has-health-benefits revelation), Chocolate Unwrapped is a close look at what ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here This virus has really knocked the stuffing out of me. We had to bail on almost all our planned activities this week, including (to my dismay), the extra Shakespeare rehearsals we’d planned. And I’ve ignored my garden dreadfully. All my herbs went to seed.
I would be sorry, but—
Who knew cilantro made such a lovely flowering plant?
That’s shot lettuce above it, the weedy yellow flowers.
Our nasturtiums have grown into huge bush-sized clumps, a tangle of red and yellow and orange flower cups that the bees are mad for. Sometimes the tangle of color happens on the petals of a single flower.
Elsewhere ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Rilla asked for something this afternoon, but I didn’t quite hear her at first.
Me: “You want a popsicle?”
Rilla: “No. A pie-cicle.”
Me: “A bicycle?”
Rilla: “NO, Mommy, a PIE-cicle.”
Jane, giggling: “What’s a pie-cicle?”
Rilla: “In the fridge!”
(She opens the freezer.)
Rilla: “Oh. I mean an ice cream cone.”
|
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Today was another sick day for me. The kids are much better, though. I could have cried with relief when Scott told me he was staying home from work today to take care of everyone. Here at the darkening end of the day, I think I’m finally seeing a glimmer of wellness in the distance. I still have no voice and a cruel cough, but I’m getting better. Hurrah.
Sick or no, we took a fun little spontaneous stroll through an interesting topic today: bento boxes. In Harvest Moon your character is given a box lunch every day, and Rose was ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here I’m kind of quarantined at the moment. The baby and Rilla seem to be more or less over the nasty little bug we’ve been passing around, but it appears to find my company irresistible and invited its nasty little friends over for a keg party in my immune system last night. I woke up at 4 a.m. with a fever and honest-to-goodness chills, the kind that make your teeth chatter. Fun!
So Scott’s doing Saturday morning cartoons with the rest of the gang, and the baby just crashed on my lap (he’s the one who gave me this blasted virus, so ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Early afternoon lull here, and I’ve got so many shreds of discussion fluttering around inside my head that I thought I’d try to catch hold of a few of them and see if they can be stitched into a patchwork post.
Author Gail Gauthier and I have been having an interesting conversation about “negative” and “positive” book reviews. It started in the comments of one of Liz B.’s excellent posts at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, and has continued on Gail’s blog. I love what Gail says about abandoning those terms—negative review, positive review—in favor of “analytical response” ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here I’m battling something ugly of the viral sort, so not much from me today. Here’s a good read elsewhere: commenter Jane Wilkerson left a link to this interesting piece on reading Dickens four ways (book, audiobook, Kindle, iPod). Right up my alley; thanks, Jane!
|
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here 
Let’s Do Nothing by Tony Fucile (Candlewick, 2009).
On July 24th, many unschoolers (and others) will celebrate “Learn Nothing Day.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek sort of holiday, the point being that it’s impossible to live a day of your life without learning something.
Well, I’ve just found the perfect picture book to read on Learn Nothing Day. Except, darn it, what if we learn something from the book?
Ah, it doesn’t matter. I’ll never be able to wait until July to share this with my gang, anyway.
Frankie and Sal are two small boys of the very busy sort. They’ve done it all—played all ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Bwah? Why, hello, Twitterlog! You’ve been AWOL for what, over a month? Why did you suddenly decide to reappear?
Well, I’m glad to have the record for the blog, but a post this long is just ridiculous. Let’s bump you off the front page, shall we?
|
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Reserved:
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart.
Why:
Have read lots of posts about it this year & meant to get to it sooner, but it was this Battle of the Kids’ Books post at SLJ that got me to click to the library hold site. Frankie lost this round to We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, but judge Rachel Cohn’s explanation of her decision made me want to read both books. I’ve got a baseball story in my queue already, so I’ll save We Are the Ship for another day.
***
Borrowed:
The Body of This by ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here For me, the 48 hours officially ended at 7 this morning. Practically speaking, that meant it ended about 11:45 last night when I fell asleep halfway through Genesis by Bernard Beckett. I found a couple of nice chunks of reading time yesterday, bringing my total up to 8 hours and 13 minutes, plus about an hour of networking time. Finished Catching Fire: wow. More on everything later but wanted to squeak this in under the deadline and now I must dive into my busy day. Visit MotherReader for the roundup!
Total reading time: 8 hrs 13 min
Networking/blog time: 1 hr 10 ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Well, the arrival of the Catching Fire ARC played right into my hankering to jump into the Challenge. Instead of gardening, running errands, and cleaning house during the baby’s naps today, I read. Clocked a little more than 4 hours of reading time since 7 a.m. You know how in every runners’ marathon there’s a weathered, smiling, sunvisored gal trailing way behind the pack, fast-walking instead of jogging, knowing she’s going to come in last but just doggone happy to be there? That’s me.
Total reading time so far: 4 hrs 17 min
Books read:
Sweethearts by Sara Zarr (had already begun)
Catching ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
|
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here My monster TBR-pile woes are well documented on this blog. I’ve already accumulated more books than I can read in a lifetime. The trouble is, people keep writing new ones. And then other people go and read them, and write captivating posts about them, and next thing I know, I’ve spent the clothing budget on books we don’t have room for, and my library hold list is, well, an embarrassment. Seriously, ma’am, you think you’re going to get through all those in three weeks? Let’s face it, you and I both know that’s not going to happen.
(Which is why I ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here Rilla says, terribly aggrieved, “Wonderboy was saying luddle-luddle-luddle to the baby.”
(You know, that sound you make when you stick your tongue in and out really fast.)
Me: “Well, the baby probably liked it!”
Rilla: “But he was saying it WRONG.”
|
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here I love the way Beanie talks to me about books. She peppers me with questions sparked by her own deep immersion in the narrative.
“Mom, how would you feel if your best friend betrayed you and then he fell off a cliff?”
“Mom, if you were the child of a Greek god, which one would you rather be the child of?”
“Mom, how would you like it if you had only one eye and you were a really ugly Cyclops?”
Any guesses what she’s reading, by the way? (It occurs to me that first question may well be a spoiler. If so, I apologize. ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here A few more e-reading notes of the thinking-aloud sort, if you don’t mind.
E-readers I’ve tried:
Classics. My favorite platform so far—best looking, most book-like text, fun page-turning effect. Obvious drawback: limited book selection. 99cent download. No cost to download additional titles as they become available.
Stanza. Very nice reading experience. Easy-to-use search function offers huge selection of free and for-purchase books (including Project Gutenberg catalog). Customizable text display (font, size, color). Center tap brings up page meter, options. One-tap page turn (you can select which zone you want to tap).
Kindle for iPhone/iPod Touch. See yesterday’s post.
Books I’ve read on my Touch:
Pride and ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
This post is from from my other blog here I continue to ponder the question of whether e-reading causes me to react to books differently than I would if I’d read them in a traditional paper format. Today I finished my first Kindle download. I don’t have a Kindle, but I do have an iPod Touch, and there’s an app now that allows you to download Kindle purchases to your iPhone or Touch. I’ve been wanting to try it, curious about how the Kindle format would compare to e-readers like Stanza or Classics. Jen Robinson’s review of The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams made me want to read ...
Click here to read the entire blog post |
| |
|
|
Archives
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
|
Member » 
17:49
2 Visits
