“Do you need to go somewhere and repeatedly fail the Bechdel test?” “Yes I do.” After a little bit of a weird slump with Vol. 3, I am back in love with this series. Susan is fresh off her break-up with McGraw (she sees moustaches everywhere!), and tries to fill the hole with various activities and other men, and nothing is working. Esther has vowed not to come back to school after the Easter holidays after messing everything up all year and in general being […]
Taking a Trip Down Memory Lane
How many books have you hung on to since childhood? As the daughter of a librarian, my answer is, “not many.” I did hang on to my Scholastic Book Club copy of Marden Dahlstedt’s The Stopping Place, from fifth grade though. I recently came across my slim paperback story of a girl from Brooklyn forced to move to New Jersey’s Pine Barrens when her hippie family relocates. (The horror!) I saved a few books from my childhood, but most of my favorites came from the library. I still […]
Gus the Fisherman
The River Why, by David James Duncan, is one of those books that I love to re-read. I’ve read it probably ten times over the last 20 years, and it always makes me happy. Sure, I basically know the story by heart, but it does my heart good to re-read it. So, what’s it about? Well, it’s about a lot of things. And if you asked me the last time I read it what it was about, I’d probably say something different than I’m going […]
The Interestings, maybe not so Interesting, but still compelling
This was my first read for the Schaumburg Library book club “Beyond the Book.” This was a great read for a book club because, well, this book was not beloved overall. There were 16 people in the club and I think 4 of us (self included) gave it a 4 out of 5, everyone else did a 3 or lower. But that made for a lively discussion. The Interestings follows a group of friends from when they meet, at an arts camp in the summer […]