Book Reviews

I didn’t go to the cin­ema very often as a child.  My first film on the big screen was Star Wars, although that was a mis­take and I should have been watch­ing Snow White instead.  Any­way, I have very fond mem­o­ries of that film but prob­a­bly my biggest child­hood cin­ema mem­o­ries are from the Indian Jones …

Author Janet Evanovich I was lucky enough to stum­ble onto Janet Evanovich back in ’95 when her book ‘One for the Money’ came out in the UK.  At the time I was work­ing near a large Water­stones and I’d often pop in to have a look dur­ing my lunch hour.  I still recall (what strange mem­o­ries …

I was sixteen years old and I was miserable. I was flunking in all my high-school classes, my mother and I had a horribly abusive relationship, I saw my father only on the weekends if that…and I hated myself. I had heard about James Dean, but had never seen any of his work. One night, …

When I was 20 I became love sick.  I was dumped by my boyfriend and I pined my life away.  I caught ton­sil­li­tis then chicken pox and finally I was knocked on my der­riere by glan­du­lar fever (mono — if you’re over the pond) all in the space of 6 months.   If you’ve ever had …

“I’m Gen­tle­man Death in silk and lace, come to put out the can­dles. The canker in the rose.” ~Lestat~ (Anne Rice) I thought since we’re approach­ing the night on Octo­ber 31 where the crea­tures of the night, cel­e­brate the moon­light, I’ll tell you about two of those crea­tures, their names are Louis and Lestat, and they are …

For some peo­ple it’s a church or place of wor­ship which is a refuge, a safe loca­tion to take a step out of every­day life and to breath.  I’ve always headed straight for a library when I need safety and respite from the daily grind or when prob­lems need attention. There is some­thing com­pelling and …

The children’s library, when I was a child, was a mag­i­cal place.  The walls were full of book­shelves and in the mid­dle of the room there were boxes of books.  All kinds of lit­tle kid books.  Adven­ture, ani­mals, pirates and best of all witches.  It was in one of those crammed full boxes I found …

Negress in Notre Dame By Robert W. Ser­vice (1874–1958) When I attended Mass today A colored maid sat down by me, And as I watched her kneel and pray, Her rev­er­ence was good to see. For whether there may be or no’ A mer­ci­ful and mighty God, The love for Him is like a glow That …

I remem­ber sit­ting in school learn­ing about his­tory and it would be all dates, pol­i­tics and lots and lots of yawn­ing. I’ve always loved learn­ing about the past but school made his­tory dead. How I wish Hor­ri­ble His­to­ries books were about back then! My sons bring them home from school and I bor­row them. Actu­ally, …

My hus­band picked out The Gar­goyle by Andrew David­son for me at our local library. The only rea­son the book caught his eye was that I’m a big fan of gar­goyles (and grotesques) so he thought I might enjoy it. I picked it up and almost put it down again because it was a love …

“I saw the pale stu­dent of unhal­lowed arts kneel­ing beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phan­tasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the work­ing of some pow­er­ful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Fright­ful must it be; for SUPREMELY fright­ful would …

For it was in high-school a really sen­si­tive, intro­verted teen-age girl was intro­duced to Emily Dick­in­son and her world. My teacher, Mr. Ver­sace, knew I was about to be kicked out of school for tru­ancy and had no sup­port  of any type at home. I had no idea who Emily Dick­in­son was even though my …

Copy­right Helge Øverås When I started High School (some 25 years ago… gosh where did the time go?) I was intro­duced to the world of good and the not so good Eng­lish teach­ers. Unfor­tu­nately the first cou­ple of years the teach­ers which took my class fell into the lat­ter cat­e­gory. I still remem­ber their faces, …

I think, bar­ing some yet to be dis­cov­ered tribes in the deep­est parts of the Ama­zon, I was the last per­son on Earth to read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I bor­rowed a copy from a friend at the place where I was work­ing then returned it com­pletely read in about 3 days. …

Cats are where it’s at… and that’s where I’m going to stop try­ing to write a Dr. Seuss type of blog post. Instead, I’ll blog about a few of my favorite famous, fic­tional cats, because my own cats are in the process of writ­ing a blog with me, so every­one will have to wait to meet …

I ordered this book from my local library for my hus­band because I saw it men­tioned some­where by some­one and I actu­ally remem­bered the title 10 min­utes later. It’s not a new book and I had to wait sev­eral weeks for the librar­i­ans to dig it out of the county store as it was buried …

Long live King Barbar! I was rumi­nat­ing over and over ask­ing myself “who or what can I write about with the let­ter “B” besides “Bar­ney, the Dinosaur” who is one of my worst night­mares. This is my first post on ABC Wednes­days, so I wanted to write about some­one I was really fond of. He …

When I was 8 or 9 my par­ents’ friend came to visit us from Canada.  I loved it when he’d visit because he always brought presents.  Not lit­tle tourist trin­kets either — he shopped at Har­rods.  On this visit, he gave me a red, leather-bound book of Alice in Wonderland. I’d never owned a book …