It’s been almost seven years since I hit “publish” here at the Emerald City Book Review. My first posts were taken from some that I’d written for the now-vanished online magazine, The Green Man Review — starting on January 1, 2014 with this review of Howl’s Moving Castle. I didn’t have much of a […]
I remember how it rocked my world when a New Yorker article showed that Madeleine L’Engle’s portrayal of her life and family in her Crosswicks journals was more of a fictional construct. Since then I’m cautious about assigning factual truth to memoirs, but I tend to give the authors some leeway. Goodness knows, if […]
Many, many years ago, in my eighth grade oral presentation class, one of the few talks I remember giving was one about e-books. They were not even really a thing back then, but for some reason the topic was in the air. I argued against them, saying that paper was more permanent, more aesthetic, […]
I sometimes humorously refer to my reading habit as an “addiction.” Of course, addiction is no joke, and any kind of compulsive behavior is not a good thing. But what actually makes something an addiction rather than a healthy pleasure? I looked up some of the criteria and tried to apply them to myself as […]
When I go to church in a nearby city, there’s a booth by the bus station that is crammed with books — mostly French and German, but quite a few in English, and free for the taking. I usually come home with as many as I can carry, but I haven’t read most of […]
The Classics Club has revived their monthly meme, with a “rebooted” question for summer 2020: “What is your favorite classic?” So I’ve co-opted it for this month’s discussion challenge. It’s too hard to designate one favorite classic book, but I well remember the first time I read a “classic” and actually enjoyed it, showing me […]
I’ve seen some comments around the blogosphere from people who say they categorically dislike first-person narration. I find this puzzling, and a bit ironic considering how deeply this form is rooted in the history of fiction; many early novels were written in the first person as “letters” or “memoirs” so the authors could present them […]
Not long ago I read The Lord of the Rings to my son — or most of it; when books get exciting he usually takes them away and ends up finishing them himself. The battle scenes, though, were often parts that neither of us found exciting. We ended up skipping some of those pages […]
In my youth, books were not always easy to find; now they seem to be assaulting me from every direction. New, old, domestic, imported, print books, e-books, conventionally published, self-published…. This abundance is amazing, but it sometimes feels a bit oppressive. Even though I have a “no review requests” policy on my blog, I […]
At the beginning of the year, I love reading about other people’s reading goals and making my own. I also sympathize with those who want to have no or very few goals. Nobody should feel that reading has to be a chore. This year, I noticed that some people have more specific plans than […]