This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme from The Broke and the Bookish is “Back to School,” so I’ve come up with a list of ten of my favorite books that are set in schools, both realistic and fantastical. This list focuses on children’s and YA novels; I could do a whole different list of books […]
Book of the Month There’s not much activity to report this month, as I took a two-week blogging break. But along with keeping up with the Reading New England and Back to the Classics challenges, I was kept busy getting ready for some coming attractions. These include the third annual Witch Week, which I’m pleased […]
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (1889) This summer, I finally read the comic classic Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. As I had found references to its characters and incidents in several other books (notably To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis), there was much that was […]
Within the clean-lined, warmly-hued facade of a one-story building located near the bustle of Somerville’s Davis Square shines one of the brightest lights in independent publishing today. Founded by the British Walker Books Group in 1990, Candlewick Press opened its doors with only six employees. Today, that number is nearly one hundred, all working hard […]
I was not a follower before I became a blogger; I only became aware of the enormous number of wonderful book blogs once I started writing one myself two and a half years ago. Once I did learn of this abundance, I had to find some way to navigate it that made sense for me. […]
Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain (1942) M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation (2006, 2008) A few weeks ago, I visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where there is a room full of portraits of prominent Boston revolutionaries. Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Joseph Warren, and others — […]
Lisa Fenn, Carry On (2016) At the rare times when I watch sporting events (mostly during the Olympics), I’m less drawn in by the goals and records scored than by the human interest stories that sportscasters concoct to tug at our heartstrings and make us feel the emotions we have in common with these amazing […]
I’m back! It’s been great to take a couple of weeks off but now I’m happy to return to the blog. Here’s what I’ve been up to… Just finished: League of Dragons by Naomi Novik The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart Almost done: The Astonishing Life […]
As a child, I always welcomed summer because I could finally enjoy lots of uninterrupted reading time — so August seemed to be the perfect month to celebrate books for children and young adults in the Reading New England challenge. And there are plenty of books to celebrate. New England has long been a favored […]