Book of Ages was a 2013 National Book Award finalist in the non-fiction category. Historian Jill Lepore pieces together the life of Ben Franklin’s sister Jane and in doing so not only reveals the life of a fascinating “ordinary” 18th-century woman who happened to be the beloved little sister of a Founding Father, but also demonstrates her own prodigious skills as an historian. Lepore’s work is specifically about Jane but more broadly about history and historians, biography and novels, and determining whose lives are worth […]
No Duke, No Earl, Slight Problem
Leave me in a bookstore and I will get lost in the romance novel section. Romance novels–to be more precise, historical romances a la old school Amanda Quick–are my default book reads, especially when I want to escape into an adult fairy tale. I say all this to make clear my bias in tackling Nancy Naigle’s Mint Juleps and Justice (2014), a contemporary romance and my January Kindle First selection. Mint Juleps and Justice is part of Naigle’s Adams Grove series set in Virginia. I […]
Thinking Twice Before I Ride on the Tube Again…
While my first two novels appear to be unread as part of Cannonball Read, I am absolutely positive that my third choice of book has been reviewed multiple times. After years of owning the novel, I finally picked up Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. My sister purchased it for me many years ago, as I have a fascination for the London Underground system. I am glad I waited until now to read it, as I was a bit of snoot back in my younger days and could […]
The true crime here is lackadaisical proofreading.
Did Lizzie Borden brutally murder her parents with a hatchet? Did anyone bother to proofread this book? What happened to the rest of this post, including the link to my review? We may never know.