Sunday Salon – Review of “Bad Mother” by Ayelet Waldman

To be perfectly honest, part of the reason I had an interest in this book was to see what the wife was like of author Michael Chabon. He’s a brilliant writer – an Artist Extraordinaire with language, a guy who pops words into a magic hat and pulls out entire new universes of spun sugar, [...]

Another Useful Author Pronunciation Guide

Bookbrowse has guidelines to pronunciations of many new writers’ names, with very good phonetic renderings. Click here to see if your favorite authors are on their list.

May 30, 1943 – Birthday of Gale Sayers, “The Kansas Comet”

Gale Sayers played football for the Chicago Bears as a halfback (today this position is called running back) from 1965 to 1971. He was forced to retire after several injuries. In 1977, Sayers was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at age 34, and is still the youngest inductee in the Hall’s history. [...]

Swag Bag Winners!

And the winners are:!!!! Mom, Dad & Kids bag: Vasilly Exotic Adventures bag: Wordlily Please send me your mailing address (and/or I will be emailing you to ask for it).

Swag Alert! One Day Giveaway for BEA Twitty Party

Book bloggers attending tonight’s Online BEA Twitty Party (to participate, sign up here) can compete for the following THREE SWAG BAGS! Each of the bags has different contents. They are: To choose winners (U.S. and Canada only), I’ll use Randomizer.org. But since this is a party, after all, we need some chit chat. So as [...]

May 29, 1848 – Wisconsin Became the 30th State Admitted to the Union

The state of Wisconsin, wholly formed out of the Northwest Territories, was named after the Wisconsin River. “Wisconsin” means “grassy place” in the Chippewa language. Wisconsin is known as The Badger State (thus the University of Wisconsin Badgers). This nickname originally referred to the lead miners of the 1830s, who worked at the Galena lead [...]

Review of “The Marriage Bureau for Rich People” by Farahad Zama

This light book set in Vizag, India skirts perilously close to the edge of boredom, but just manages to avoid falling off because of the character of Aruna. Aruna is the office assistant in the Marriage Bureau, a venture set up by Mr. Ali so he would have something to do in his retirement. Aruna [...]

Review of “Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle” by Nan Marino (Ages 8-12)

This touching story will have you sidling up to your Kleenex box. It’s a short and ultimately sweet story about coping with loss, narrated by ten-year-old Tamara Ann Simpson, or Tammy. It’s the summer after fifth grade for Tammy, in 1969, the same summer that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Tammy’s best friend, Kebsie [...]

That Book Should Be A Movie!

Maybe it already is! Check this excellent database to find out. You can search by movie title, movie release year, book title, or book author.

Memorial Day Remembrance: Lynching of Black Veterans After World War II

By the end of the summer of 1945, World War II had come to an end. Over the next several months, many of the twelve million veterans returned home; 880,000 of these were black Americans. They had gone overseas to put their lives at risk in the fight for freedom and democracy, and they come [...]