The Need To Read: Is This a Good Thing?

I love to read and I will grab at any opportunity that presents itself to pull out a book and sneak in a chapter or two. At home, at work or on the road, I've gotten very creative at finding opportunities that will allow me to lose myself, just for a moment, in the pages of one story or another (iPhones are great for subtle reading during meetings and lectures). But lately some of my enthusiasm for reading has been dampened by the fact that I don’t...

Friday Quotes

I listened to the audio of The Thirteenth Tale this week and the prose was so wonderful that it was hard for me to limit myself to just these few quotes. The narration was also really fantastic, and I highly recommend this audio book, though I'm sure it's just as good in book format.I actually did quite a bit of non-genre reading this week, which included Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley and The Year of Pleasure by Elizabeth Berg, though I haven't decided yet if I'll be reviewing them here.So here are this week's quotes. Enjoy!**************************************************************************************The...

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

After I had finished reading Dead and Gone last year, I told myself that if the next book in the series does not show vast improvement then I'm done with these books- and then I went on to write my harshest book review yet. So as the publication date for Dead in the Family approached, my eagerness was tinted by apprehension. Would this be the end of the road for me and Sookie, or will Charlaine Harris come through and provide a book equal to the...

Writer's Block video by Jackson Pearce

This is Jackson Pearce's version of Tick Tock, entitled Writer's Block, which I found over at Michelle and Leslie's Book Picks. It cracked me up so I had to share it with you.And if you are not familiar with Jackson Pearce she is the author of the YA books As You Wish and Sister's Red, which will be released next mon...

Favorite Fictional Character: Anita from West Side Story

Favorite Fictional CharacterHosted by Ryan at WordsmithoniaLast week’s FFC post about Mary Poppins got me reminiscing about some of my other favorite musicals, and so I decided this week to choose a character from one of the musicals I enjoy the most, West Side Story. I’ve actually only seen West Side Story on film, not live, but each time I watch it I’m equally impressed by the character of Anita, played by Rita Moreno.West Side Story is a modern...

Scifi For Beginners: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

I haven’t read a lot of books about aliens though I’ve always kind of imagined them as strange humanoid creatures, perhaps with antennas on their heads, who land their spaceships on Earth and demand ‘take me to your leader.’ But I’ve never thought about the other side of the story, about the humans who themselves are aliens when they arrive on foreign planets and encounter the inhabitants- at least not until I read Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand...