Anthology

#CBR10Bingo: Two Heads Are Better Than One – introducing my husband (Blackout AND double Cannonball!)

Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O'Shea

November 30, 2018 by Malin 2 Comments

#CBR10Bingo: Two Heads Are Better Than One So my final review of #CBR10Bingo requires some assistance, and I will be joined by my husband Mark (“Hello!”), who also gave me the book we’re co-reviewing. I figured I should start with some background. I hadn’t watched any of the now hugely popular children’s television program Doctor Who until I went to University in Scotland in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Of course, this was because at that point, the show wasn’t actually on the air, and anyone who wanted to watch it, or get other friends interested in it, probably had to own […]

11/30/2018 Malin's CBR10 Review No:104 |

Y’all…. This one’s gonna be a bit different

There is No Good Card for This; When Life Hits the Fan; TIny Beautiful Things; 180 more Extraordinary Poems for Every Day; the sun and her flowers; The Art of Comforting; Rising Strong; How to Be a Heroine; Raising Human Beings by Kelsey Crowe & Emily McDowell; Janet Fouts; Cheryl Strayed; Billy Collins; Rupi Kaur; Val Walker; Brene Brown, Samantha Ellis; Ross Greene

November 10, 2018 by NTE 5 Comments

Lemme tell you a not-so-secret-secret about ‘adulthood’: Nobody knows what the f they are doing. So much of being an adult is dealing with sucky situations – all the sudden a lot of your friend’s parents are dying, or your sister-in-law gets cancer (again), or this one has an affair that devastates that one, or your cousin suffers another miscarriage while her sister is expecting twins. Literally, life just becomes chock full of situations that you are not prepared to face, and suddenly you have no other choice but to face them. At least, that’s what adulthood has been […]

11/10/2018 NTE's CBR10 Review No:20 |

The Locals Pronounce it “Mayum-fiss”

Memphis Noir by (Various)

August 18, 2018 by Jake Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR 10 Bingo: Brain Candy I love the Akashic Noir series, having read or browsed through the Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans and Bronx ones. They provide two things I enjoy: a murder mystery and a tourism read. My dad is a native Memphian and despite the city’s many flaws, I’m partial to it. So it was a no-brainer to pick this one up. As with the rest of the series, some of these are better than others. I was partial to Through Valleys (which had an ending I didn’t expect), Never Never (the first graphic cartoon I recall reading in […]

8/18/2018 Jake's CBR10 Review No:9 |

Stories About Technology and Discovery

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

April 2, 2018 by Tracy Leave a Comment

The e-book version that I got from my library was actually titled Arrival, with the note that it had been previously published as Stories of Your Life, and I got it because I wanted to read the story that the movie Arrival was based on, so I’ll start with that one. It’s titled “Story of Your Life,” and it’s good. I think the movie is better, which I don’t usually think, but I also don’t usually see the movie before reading the book. I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, so all I’ll say is that there are […]

4/2/2018 Tracy's CBR10 Review No:8 |

40 stories for 40 years.

From a Certain Point of View by Various

December 28, 2017 by narfna Leave a Comment

What a fun ode to one of my favorite movies. Seriously, who came up with this idea? It’s great. For the fortieth anniversary of Star Wars (now ponderously titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope), forty authors who are Star Wars- or nerd-adjacent take side or peripheral characters from the original film and write short stories from their perspectives. These stories are all told in chronological order, from the death of the captain of the Tantive IV all the way to the awards ceremony at the end of the film where we get POV from one of Leia’s fellow Alderaan survivors. The affect is […]

12/28/2017 narfna's CBR9 Review No:113 |

Apparently Santa leaves the ass-kicking to his wife

Mrs. Claus: Not the Fairy Tale They Say by Rhonda Parrish

December 10, 2017 by crystalclear Leave a Comment

So, this is the second time I’ve received an ARC and am reading and posting my review after the publication date. Oops. To be fair, I kept looking for this one in my email, but I somehow missed it. But then I found it, so here we go! Mrs. Claus: Not the Fairy Tale They Say is an anthology of short stories all about Mrs. Claus. So, perfect for the holiday season! Rhonda Parrish was inspired by an ad she saw about a non-traditional Mrs. Claus, one other than the kindly old lady who bakes cookies and helps around the […]

12/10/2017 crystalclear's CBR9 Review No:24 |

Myth, history and culture collide

China Girl: And Other Stories by Ho Lin

November 10, 2017 by teresaelectro Leave a Comment

Ho Lin’s short story anthology was an interesting read. Each tale aimed to shed light on random moments from varying points of view. He pulls in the reader with unexpected juxtapositions of settings and tone. The collection exudes emotion as if the stories were collective memories meshed together. He rarely delves deep into any specific narratives. The stories bounced between Asia and American even within the same story. We meet an American ex-Pat in China, then a host of characters in San Francisco, while another traveling on a subway in Hong Kong. These characters muse on how they’ve ended up […]

11/10/2017 teresaelectro's CBR9 Review No:5 |

An Earworm of an Anthology

When You're Strange by Sarah Vestal and Danne Boyd, Editors

November 9, 2017 by sabian30 Leave a Comment

When You’re Strange edited by Sarah Vestal and Danne Boyd (2017) – I’m not sure what’s going on with the cover, but the stories in this themed anthology dramatically bring out the differences and similarities in all of us. Whether you’re an Alice tasked with tracking escapees in the real world, a young collector of souls who foolishly believes wars will be over soon, a young water witch marrying a fire warlock, or a trio of friends trapped in a video game, this collection of stories shows how there are different levels of strangeness, but all of them are intriguing […]

11/9/2017 sabian30's CBR9 Review No:40 |

J on “I wasn’t ashamed of anything because our family secret wasn’t dark and my mother acted neither apologetic nor embarrassed.”Such a good book! The affection comes through on every page.
emmalita on What a Bunch of A-holesYou should definitely listen to those podcast episodes. All your rage will be for the assholes involved.
lowercasesee on “The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them. “Oh woah! I have this one coming from the library. I've seen so much "IT'S GREAT" but not actually know what it is going to...
badkittyuno on Shockingly raw and well-writtenThat was great! I feel like that show would be improved several times over if they lost the soundtrack...
badkittyuno on “Carnivore in the streets, person-who-has-eaten-a-carrot-masquerading-as-a-hot-dog in the sheets.”Ha I didn't even realize. Thanks!