Review of “Cold Kiss” by Amy Garvey

Yes, this is yet another book that might cause you to think, “WHY were you reading this?” Well, just chalk it up to sociological research. I like to know what is driving the creative imaginations of writers for young adults these days. Seventeen-year-old Wren comes from a family of women who have an extreme sensitivity [...]

Review of “Falling Together” by Marisa de los Santos

This book is built upon a theme I generally eschew for being too predictable: friends getting together at a school reunion after not having seen each other for (in this case) six years, and then evincing fairly foreseeable reactions to one another. [On the other hand, I love the movie "Romy And Michele's High School [...]

Review of “Goodnight, Nebraska” by Tom McNeal

Can Tom McNeal write anything that doesn’t take your breath away? I’m beginning to think not. McNeal is reminiscent of both Faulkner and Steinbeck in that he combines accounts of terrible evil (all the more horrifying because often aleatory) with glimmering moments of glad grace, both delivered in spare but elegant prose. Yet unlike the [...]

October 4 – National Cinnamon Bun Day in Sweden

Surely we can’t let Sweden be more advanced than we are on such an important issue! We need a holiday for this in America as well! Well-known author Mark Kurlansky has a poem that expresses the American love for cinnamon buns: Americans Have Cinnamon on Their Buns by Mark Kurlansky America is a cinnamon coated [...]

Review of “The Fox Inheritance” by Mary E. Pearson

This is the second installment of the eventual trilogy “The Jenna Fox Chronicles.” The first book was The Adoration of Jenna Fox (see my review, here). When I started to read the second, I actually stopped and went back and reread the first because it I had forgotten a lot and it was a little [...]

Sunday Salon – Birthday Thoughts and Carrot Cake Recipe

Today is my birthday. I’ve always been a fan of the bittersweet story, of the Blues, and of the Fado (called Portuguese blues by some, the fado is a music genre usually linked to the Portuguese word saudade which refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love, and which is [...]

Some Highlights of the 2011 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

As I mentioned in a previous post, last week I went to see my family in the D.C. area, timing my visit to coincide with the National Book Festival held on September 24 and 25 on the National Mall. It was exceedingly wonderful, even though I didn’t get to see nearly enough of the authors [...]