Best for: Someone who wants to provoke (a bit of) deeper thinking on the ways we live our lives. In a nutshell: A hospice chaplain uses stories from families and individuals she has assisted to make sense of life. Line that sticks with me: “The things you lose do shape who you become. But the losses don’t obliterate what came before.” Why I Chose It: This was an impulse buy only in that it was on my list and I didn’t yet own it. I […]
Trouble in paradise
I fell head over heels for the movie adaptation of The Descendants a few years back. This family dealing with their grief struck me as true to life. The loss of a loved one can be overwhelming but life still goes forward, even when you’re dying inside. The Descendants captured that dichotomy and I’ve been meaning to read the book ever since. The novel centers on Matt King and his family. Matt’s great grandmother was a Hawaiian princess and he and his cousins are the […]
The Hidden Chamber
I got on the library queue for this book because I knew that it contains “The Monarch of the Glen,” which is the novella follow-up to American Gods. I am committed to my American Gods love, and wanted to complete my library of knowledge of all things Shadow. But this book, oh, this wonderful book. It’s a collection of some of the most beautiful poetry and short stories, in perfect Gaiman-ian language, set in dark landscapes that are undeniably his. I could pick these works […]
Frantic Avoidance
As a piece of art, I have to give it to Dave Eggers. AHBWOSG is carefully composed, wonderfully constructed, funny, poignant, and moving. But it’s also a pile of emotional bullshit that took me ages to read, and I couldn’t get away from it fast enough once I had inhaled the last intentionally-breakneck run-on paragraph. I have now moved on, immediately and purposefully, to “Men Explain Things to Me.” But back to the “Staggering Genius,” which is a memoir, slightly fictionalized, as Eggers explains […]
“That’s what the cool people who mock breeders don’t understand: that there can be a love bigger than two people.”
After breezing through the David Wong books, it seemed a natural next step to check out his Cracked colleague, Wayne Gladstone. I can’t say I came away from this book with near the excitement or sense of joy. There’s something lacking, here. Specifically, the first three quarters of the book leave much to be desired. In the world of Notes from the Internet Apocalypse, the internet has mysteriously disappeared, leaving the world in, well, pretty much the same state it’s currently in. Ignore the “apocalypse” […]
Goodbye Ziggy Stardust…
It’s another picture book, you guys, so buckle up. I have Opinions. Some of you may be familiar with Melanie Watt from her Scaredy Squirrel series, although I don’t know how popular she is outside of Canada. Scaredy Squirrel is a good series for kids who are a little hesitant about new things. Childhood is scary. That series is fine but has never caught my interest particularly. This book however! This book is gorgeous. The illustrations are beautiful and detailed with a uniquely 60s aesthetic. […]