Since I went to high school in the 1980s, of course I've heard of The Color Purple, Alice Walker's 1982 novel that won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into an Oscar-winning movie a couple of years later. But I never read it (or saw the movie), and had no more than a vague idea … Continue reading Beautiful Books: The Color Purple
In my ongoing struggles with prayer, I have been saying The Lord's Prayer at least once a day for the last several years. That doesn't mean I understand it. Sometimes I wonder about the accuracy of the translation, and so recently I tried going back to the original Greek, and delving more into the meaning … Continue reading A puzzling prayer
Friends, it's time once more to help me pick something from my shelves to read, helping me to clear my TBR and my conscience of these books that have been sitting around way too long. Whatever you choose, I promise to read it ... sometimes it takes me a month or more, but I've always … Continue reading Make me read it: Acclaimed fiction edition
Last year for the "Love Freebie" at Top Ten Tuesday, I listed Ten book blogs I love. Of course, it was hard to stick to just ten, so I thought I'd do the same again this year! This also meets my February goal for the Support Book Bloggers challenge, an extra bonus. Here are ten … Continue reading Ten More Book Blogs I Love
Dear blog readers, how have you been? What's on your mind and heart? Share your monthly review in the comments, or any other thoughts, and I'll be sure to follow up. In this time of distancing, lockdown, and just wintry coldness, I appreciate our interactions all the more. Literature I read a lot of books … Continue reading Month in Review: January 2022
Linking up with The Chocolate Lady's Throwback Thursday meme - I'm sharing a favorite post from my former blog, The Emerald City Book Review. This month, since I'm so enjoying #Narniathon21, I'm looking back to my review of The Magician's Book - Salon.com writer Laura Miller's memoir about her childhood journeys in the land of … Continue reading Throwback Thursday: The Magician’s Book
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct, 1994 It took me a couple of months, but I did it! In my last Make Me Read It poll, readers chose Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct, a complex yet relatively accessible account by a cognitive psychologist, describing his understanding of "how the mind creates language." I did not always … Continue reading You made me read it: The Language Instinct
When C.S. Lewis first began the story that became The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he didn't have further installments in mind. And ending as it does with the children returned to the exact moment they left our world through the magic wardrobe, that book has a circular structure that does not necessitate further … Continue reading #Narniathon21: The Return to Narnia
This year, I decided to join in a new kind of blog activity for me, the "One Word" community at Lisa Notes. As far as I can tell, this involves choosing one word to engage with during the year, mindfully following it as a thread through life's ups and downs and distractions. Once a month … Continue reading One Word for 2022
After I moved to Switzerland, digestive issues that had previously been annoying but manageable ramped up and made me quite miserable. So I tried eliminating a variety of foods in various combinations, at the most extreme point being unable to eat anything except vegetables (and not all of those either). This was depressing. Living in … Continue reading My gluten-free life (with a recipe)
