This isn’t the first time I’ve written a book review without finishing the book — but the last time was in the early 1980s when I read the first and then last chapters of Jane Eyre for English class. Plus one chapter in the middle I’d been assigned. The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the most Devastating Plague of All Time is *exactly* the sort of book that should have been up my alley. It promises to be a look at […]
Hot Pockets 2: The Hot-Pocketing
There are few things Americans like to do more than eat. No one knows that better than comedian Jim Gaffigan. He has made a career celebrating and poking fun at our national obsession. In his new book, Food: A love Story, Gaffigan collects many of his stand up bits and expands on them, adds more, and delivers a consistently amusing, wry, and laugh out loud funny book. What I liked best about the book is that as much as Gaffigan professes his dislike for fruits […]
Medieval Murder Mystery with a plague twist? Sure.
Yet another of my Kindle deals – I love my Kindle cheapies. To a point. This one is a murder mystery, which I like. It takes place in 1666 in London, which I also like. Oh, and plague is breaking out. I don’t really like plague, but the black death has always been pretty interesting. In this one, we’ve got Charlie Tuesday (the day he was put into the foundling hospital – no, seriously, that’s why). He’s a thief-taker, sort of a middle ages private […]
Caution: Do not read this book at bedtime
I pretty much enjoyed Gone Girl, although (like many people), I did not care for the ending. I was on the fence about reading anything else by Gillian Flynn, not so much because of that, in fact I’m not really sure why I was reluctant, although one thing that threw me is that after all the dark twistiness of Gone Girl, she ended the book with an acknowledgements section that read like a high school yearbook dedication. That was the twistiest bit of all for me. […]