Several weeks ago, I finished Ulrich Boser's nonfiction book, THE GARDNER HEIST. I love capers, and the Gardner Museum art theft intrigues me to no end. FabHusband bought the book for me after we saw the author interviewed on a local TV program.

ANYway, finishing it got me to thinking about what I read. I can't remember the last time I didn't have ( Read more... )

 A couple of weeks ago, I went to hear Nick Hornby read from his new novel, JULIET, NAKED.He was awesome--funny, articulate, and so nice.

I'm in the middle of JULIET right now, and am loving it. I try to read as widely as possible--a mix of fiction, nonfiction, kidlit, poetry, etc--but I haven't read any contemporary "adult" fiction in a while ( ( Read more... )

 Okay, I have a zillion other things I need to be doing right now--including warming some pureed squash for CC--and about 6 posts that I should put up instead (including one on revisions and another on germinating new ideas), but I have to stop and say: READ THIS BOOK!


( Read more... )

I managed to cram some good books into the last weeks of the semester.

• Buried, Robin Merrow MacCready
This Edgar Award winning novel follows Claudine as she copes with the mysterious absence of her mother, her own OCD tendencies, and living on her own. MacCready captures the desperation that Claudine feels and shows it to readers through her ( Read more... )

The day before Thanksgiving brought with it an early visit from Santa--a package of edits on BB from Ms. Awesome Editor! She sent me a heard copy of my manuscript dotted with questions and a short letter with five points to address. As before, her comments are insightful, thoughtful, and serve only to make the book better. There are no major ( Read more... )

1. Had the pleasure of getting my fresh copy of Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles (aka jbknowles) signed last Thursday at the BU bookstore. Had it not been POURING outside and traffic not been so bad that it took me TWO HOURS to get home from work, I would also have been able to hear her read and answer questions with Cecil Castellucci, who signed my ( Read more... )

...because anything else I post about will stress me out today.

Blaze by Richard Bachman ( Read more... )

Since school has been out I’ve had the opportunity to catch up on some reading. Here are the highlights of the past week:

The Rules of Survival and Are You Alone on Purpose?, Nancy Werlin
I had the fortune of meeting Nancy when I was in graduate school, right after the release of The Killer’s Cousin, and then re-connected with her at last month’s ( Read more... )

While ill with the Bubonic Head Cold of Death (I'm mostly recovered now), all I did was read (and watch Law & Order reruns, but we won't get into the role that they played in my recovery).

I finished a few other novels, including Crank by Ellen Hopkins (which I really enjoyed) and Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris (so awful it made me cringe), but ( Read more... )

I had time to do a fair amount of reading while I was gone, and caught up on a couple of fall releases that I'd had to put off because of school. The notables:

Lisey's Story, Stephen King
I've been reading Stephen King since I was nine (yes--I read It in 4th grade. I was advanced and liked scary stuff), and automatically pick up anything he puts ( Read more... )