February 25, 2011 – 11:22 am
The Book: Baby Laughs: The Naked Truth About the First Year of Mommyhood
The Story: Pretty simple: Jenny McCarthy made a lot of dough off of her first book, Belly Laughs, and figured that she should keep on riding that train.
She talks a lot about the big things that parents deal with in the first year: [...]
February 17, 2011 – 6:55 pm
The Book: Blankets, by Craig Thompson
The Story: This is Craig Thompson’s memoir of growing up in Wisconsin. With pictures and words he covers everything from sibling rivalry to his struggle with religion to his first love.
What I Thought: This was a re-read for me. I read this for the first time several years ago. It [...]
January 31, 2011 – 8:54 pm
The Book: The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad
The Story: In Spring of 2002- after 9/11 and the fall of the Taliban- Asne headed to Afghanistan to live with the family of a bookseller that she had met. She lived with them for four months, just observing their lives and what they did day-to-day.
Because she [...]
January 24, 2011 – 9:40 am
The Book: The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David Grann
The Story: During the early 1900’s, the “thing” was to take a group of men into the Amazon jungle and get them all killed by bugs, animals, cannibals, weather, starvation, or really any other way you can imagine. [...]
December 13, 2010 – 9:46 am
The Book: Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher
The Story: This is the memoir of Marya’s 10+ year battle with anorexia and bulimia. She shares her earliest memories of having a strange relationship with food and how her mom really helped fuel that. She shares starting to purge and starve and so on around the age of 9 [...]
December 1, 2010 – 9:19 am
The Book: The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van, by Alan Bennett
The Story: This is actually two little mini-stories. They are not really as short as short stories or as long as novellas, so I guess “mini stories” it is…
The Clothes They Stood Up In is about an older couple, [...]
November 29, 2010 – 11:38 am
The Book: Wish I Could Be There, by Allen Shawn
The Story: Allen has struggled with his phobias for a long time. When he was younger, he could overcome them a little better but as he has grown older, his list of phobias has grown and with it, his ability to override his brain and get [...]
November 22, 2010 – 9:21 am
The Book: Flyboys, by James Bradley
The Story: I told you a little bit about this book last week when I was still reading it. It is kind of an overall look at the Pacific side of World War Two. Side by side, James Bradley tells the story of Japan and their history as well as [...]
November 12, 2010 – 6:12 am
Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
Sometimes books will have this one scene that just sticks with you. I have to admit that I don’t remember all of this book. I remember that it is written as a diary and it is about this girl, Alice, that gets totally screwed up on drugs. I remember Alice [...]
November 8, 2010 – 10:54 am
The Book: The Middle Place, by Kelly Corrigan
The Story: The Middle Place, in this book, is defined as a time between being parented and parenting. The author explains that it’s kind of this golden time where you are almost “playing house.” You have your own family and children but very much identify with and cling [...]