I listened to the audio version of this, and realized about halfway through that while the Irish accents were lovely, and the writing was very pretty, that I actually totally hated the wishy washy main character — and nothing ever really happens. “She thought it was strange that the mere sensation of savouring the prospect of something could make her think for a while that is must be the prospect of home.” Eilis Lacey is a young lady living in Ireland with her mother and older […]
“A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.”
I feel like I’ve read a lot of dysfunctional family memoirs lately, but this was probably one of the best-written memoirs (most dysfunctional families), up there with The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. “Those are only rumors of suffering. Real suffering has a face and a smell. It lasts in the most intense form no matter what you drape over it. And it knows your name.” Mary Karr grew up in the 1960s, mostly in a poisonous east Texas oil town called Leechfield, although she did spend […]
I cannot even begin to describe the plot of this one
Once a month, I spend $14.95 on my Audible subscription, which allows me one download for free. I used seven of these last year on the Dark Tower books, both because I wanted the whole series downloaded on audio, and also because I knew I’d be getting the most bang for my buck — the last book in the series was like 42 hours long. Now that I’ve finished those, I think I’ve found a new source for excellent and LONG audiobooks — Neal Stephenson. Reamde took […]
“My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six.”
I know Alan Alda has decades of prestigious acting under his belt, and most people know him primarily as Hawkeye on M.A.SH., but I really only know him for one role: he played Dr. Kerry Weaver’s mentor on ER, and she eventually had to confront him about his Alzheimer’s disease. According to IMDB, that arc was in 1999 — so obviously he made an impression on me with the role. When I saw his biography with it’s rather…eye-catching title, I figured I might find out a bit more […]