This novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. This first-person account tells Alice's memories of her and her sisters' friendship with Charles Dodgson of Oxford University, where her father was the Dean. The broad strokes are true -- Dodgson did photograph her and other girls ( Read more... )

Subtitle: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.Eric Weiner spent a year traveling to various countries to meet the people there and see why the countries are rated as being so happy (or in the case of Moldova, not happy). Obviously, these ratings, which come from a database in the Netherlands, don't mean that every person in the ( Read more... )

I started reading this years ago, and for some reason put it down and didn't pick it up again until now. I don't know why; I've always liked Oliver Sacks. He seems like a kindly uncle. This is a book of essays on the neuroscience of vision and our experience of the visual world. There's a patient who mysteriously loses the ability to read, even ( Read more... )

Austen kick! I'm fascinated by the contrast between this one and Pride and Prejudice. The Dashwoods live out in nature so much; there are strong descriptions of the landscape around their cottage, and the daughters are constantly going walking, which is apparently their main form of entertainment: up into the hills, along the lane, across the ( Read more... )

Ellen Kushner has written three novels set in a fictional, unnamed city with the neighborhoods of Riverside, the Hill, etc. In this city, the nobles settle their differences using employed swordsmen to do their dueling for them. Only the nobles have the privilege of the sword. The first novel, Swordspoint, introduced this city and although I wanted ( Read more... )

Watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries inspired me to reread the original source material. Apparently I've seen the Colin Firth adaptation enough times, however, that a lot of the book comes to me in visual/audio format from that miniseries. Mrs. Bennet especially cannot remove her voice from the actress who played her. Although to be honest I think I ( Read more... )

This is the fourth in the Jackson Brodie series. I liked the last one so much that I actually purchased this one for my Kindle since the BPL doesn't have it. Jackson takes in a dog, and another new character finds companionship in an even more unorthodox way ( Read more... )

I'm not usually into mysteries, but maybe I should start. This was a page-turner, another Jackson Brodie story involving a girl who might be my favorite character in all these books, Reggie. I really like how Atkinson can write literary mysteries with lots of references that I don't necessarily get. These are really good, so if you're at all into ( Read more... )

This was a very different novel from Cloud Atlas, which I adored, although there were some similar elements, mostly Mitchell's ability to write evil characters ( Read more... )

An incident of road rage begins this literary mystery/thriller, the second novel starring Jackson Brodie, ex-cop and PI. Atkinson can write well; I remember enjoying her first Jackson Brodie novel and her other novels as well. It's the Edunburgh Festival, and all the action takes place over four days of the Festival. Atkinson introduces a rather ( Read more... )