The Glass Box. Truthfully this was almost a pan, but I do have admiration for those who put themselves out there and self-publish. It desperately needed a good editor, and there was too much focus on the “action” as Corey and Isabella are pursued by an “evil mastermind” who gets about 4 pages of backstory. I picked it up in an LFL because it was a book cross and I have dutifully sent it to a different state! #bookcrossing

Unlike Narcissus and Goldmund, this felt rather dated, but intriguing enough as a love child of Catcher in the Rye and the Sorrows of Young Werther with a dash of Nietzsche and Freud thrown in.
Full Review: https://readingrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2025/11/2025-46-demian-hesse.html
#FollowTheLeader Challenge 2025
wish they credited the cover art, slightly creepy though it is

Favorite read of October was Martyr! #TOB2025

The title felt a bit gratuitous to me, but then I thought, what would I title this novel?...There are moments that read like a charming coming-of-age tale, others that twist your heart [...] What a gift to be able to see ourselves through her eyes, to laugh at our silliness, to cry at our cruelty, to empathize with our pain. FULL REVIEW: https://readingrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2025/10/2025-45-beautyland-bertino.htm... #TOB2025 #TOB25

No way on earth I could review it in a little blurb here. Longest audiobook I have ever listened to. Hope it is worth it to read my complete review (and not because I'm trying to get blog traffic) -- it is just that an 800 page book requires some thought...: https://readingrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2025/10/2025-44-love-songs-of-web-du-b...

...beautiful, tragic, funny,...There's even a plot twist -- handled deftly by Akbar, without resorting to clichéd sentimentality. ... lays bare themes of addiction, abandonment, artistic impulse, religiosity, media filters, racism, sexuality, and yes-- martyrdom-... like one of those rare honest conversations one might have with a close friend #TOB2025
Full review: https://readingrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2025/10/2025-43-martyr-akbar.html

Wind-down time. This was suggested to me nearly 15 years ago (I‘m a musician), and I bought it probably 10 years ago, and now I read it only when I‘m in a specific location, but I‘m doing it! A lovely book so far. Technically I‘m probably going to read Martyr! tonight since it is due back via Libby on Tuesday, but this made for a nicer pic!

Having been a fan of the series with Kenneth Branagh (we didn't have the opportunity to watch more than one episode of the original Swedish series), I was eager to compare the experience of reading one of the books. This did not disappoint. There's a lot happening. Lots of character development for Wallander, who is going through his own stages of grief. My only real complaint is that I wanted more of the catalyst to be involved in the plot.

Spotted this adorable #LFL on Beacon Street in Boston yesterday. Made me smile.

September = Back to School = very few books finished.

Phoebe is an amazing protagonist, and the book is full of characters who are hiding behind façades, and Espach lets us see that so that they don't become caricatures. The initial premise doesn't seem like it would be very funny--and it isn't--but the story is so very human and redemptive in that the characters get to be real people, making real choices. A delightful read. #TOB2025

“Maybe this is just what it means to be a person. to constantly reckon with being a single being in one body. Maybe everybody sits up at night and creates arguments in their head for why they are the loneliest person in the world.”

I read a lot of reviews of this book because it occurred to me that I don't have a good sense of reading through an eleven or twelve-year old's eyes. My goddaughter was assigned this book for school, so I read it (as are her parents). I sat with it for awhile and looked back through it, trying to parse the pet peeves from the genuine criticisms.

I started this from my stash several weeks ago when I was laid up with back pain. I couldn‘t even get what was happening. Tonight I restarted it at a “Reading Dinner” at a friend‘s house: we read for roughly 30-40 minutes then have dinner. It is like a WHOLE NEW BOOK! Context matters!!

Well, I lied. In my last post I said I had a stack of books I got from a LFL that were going to wait until next summer. Well, I needed a book for a long car trip and grabbed this. I loved the Wallander TV series with Kenneth Branagh and have been eager to start the books. This is no. 6 in the series but if they used it for the TV series, I don‘t remember, which is good. I usually avoid reading mysteries that have been done as shows.

Loved the Bosch TV series and I‘m from LA originally so excited to dig into these. Picked them up at an unofficial little free library outside a general store in VT, and sadly, I won‘t dig into until next summer. Ignore the pine needle basket on the top—pandemic project!

Argh, the cropping is off, sorry. Full review: http://readingrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2023/10/2023-41-landscape-with-invisibl...

A biography of conservationist Georgiana Molloy who created English gardens in Australia during the 19th century. Read it back in 2007 and found it far more interesting than anticipated. The title doesn‘t scream “Book about gardening” 😂Probably picked it up via #bookcrossing but I can‘t remember. Trying to give some love to post-less books here :-)

Picked this up over the weekend and I‘m excited to crack it open! I love her Japanese Home Cooking book—the recipes are accessible and she gives you resources for where to buy harder-to-find ingredients. #cookbooks

August ended up being a slower reading month than anticipated, but I‘m pleased to have crossed of three #TOB2025 books. Waiting on The Wedding People and Martyr from the Library.

This book is a reminder of the things you should hold dear. The things that truly COULD make us great, or at least could reinvest in real patriotism. It is an expanded listicle of 20 “lessons“ from the twentieth century. If you feel you lack courage to resist, throw this tiny book in your bag and take it out and reread it as you wait for the bus.
Make eye contact and small talk (#12).
Start somewhere.

“History does not repeat. But it does instruct.“ #FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

Short version: “Ambivalent“ is the right word to describe how I feel about this book. There were parts of this book I LOVED and parts I really did not love.
Suzie? I kept forgetting she existed and then she'd pop up like a game of whack-a-mole. The mushroom “scene“ was off the rails--these types of things made the plot feel like a game of yo-yo. Jinx was a GREAT character. Full review in comments. #TOB2025

It isn't just simply “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told by Jim.“ The messages aren't subtle, but it is an invitation to think about an old character (or actually old characters--Huck, too), in a new way. There are parts that drag a bit, but overall the novel illuminates the privilege of “adventures“ and how characters can reclaim and change the archetypes to which they've been relegated. #TOB2025

First book I ever blogged— 20 years ago!

Fred Rogers was, by all accounts, a hugely decent human being who used his primary platform (Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) to address pressing issues in a subtle way. Long is careful not to glorify the man, and reveals tensions between Betty Aberlin and Rogers when the latter refused to move beyond subversive messaging about the Gulf War. His friendship and professional relationship with opera singer Francois Clemmons receives some nuance.

This is a remarkable book that manages to combine "memoir with marine biology" as the podcast Science Friday put it (which was the impetus for me to put the book on my reading list). What keeps it from a full five stars for me is the whiplash between the two. Often, it is the passages focused on the sea creatures where Imbler offers their most potent observations. There are passages that brought me to tears.

Here for my grandpa‘s memorial and I always score something great from Mutual 16‘s lending library. And yes, I‘ve left books too!

“I considered the northern white stance against slavery. How much of the desire to end the institution was fueled by a need to quell and subdue white guilt and pain? Was it just too much to watch? [. . .] I knew that whatever the cause of their war, freeing slaves was an incidental premise and would be an incidental result.” (286) #truth

I care not a whit about wrestling, so I could have skipped that aspect of this book, and I also had the murderer figured out very early in the game, but still, this was very entertaining. This first book in the series hooked me, mostly through the protagonist who navigates both his demons and the quirky characters of his small town with a certain amount of earthy skepticism and hard-won good-naturedness. #firstpost

3.75 stars This gives us a better look at the Knoxes and the Bardos, the latter familiar from the previous book. The book opens with the grisliest murder yet in the series, and we soon learn that relativism looms large as we see a whole lot of "wrong place, wrong time" and "in over his head" sorts of explanations for bad behavior. There is a definite red herring, but it turns out to be a bit more interesting than usual.
#firstpost

One of those rare occasions where the second in the trilogy is better!

I got a new backpack, but I‘ve already had these catch on things and fall off, so I‘m reluctant to transfer them to the new one!

#Series firsts are hard -- the author has to hook you on the characters AND tell a good story. Greenwood deftly uses the dancer Sasha and the impressionable Dot to help show us Phryne's character, but also as pivotal plot pushers. Phryne is hedonistic, yes, but not just that, and it is ultimately a pleasure to get some insights beyond her roaring 20s persona. The whirlwind sometimes overwhelmed, but overall I'm happy to continue with the series!

Since it doesn't yet have a post:
These men confront not each other, but the issues of apocalyptic perspective, abortion, women in the Church, violence and much more. They recognize these issues not as polemics to be tossed back and forth for endless bantering, but as fundamental to outlining a definition of “humanity.“ Both men are scholars and people of faith, aware of the cultural and social millieu around them. Also, short! #firstpost

This is dystopic sci-fi, but it is also a “coming-of-age“ novel. And a declaration of faith. “Embrace diversity or be destroyed.“ “God is change.“ Butler celebrates the power of poetry--no matter the source. And she even recognizes the limits to her protagonist's agency, as Lauren must disguise herself (figuratively and literally).

And the book is remarkably prescient. A #favorite !

I have given this book a lengthy review elsewhere (GR, my blog) substantiating my “pan”. But while I think roughly half of the book is a great reference for the actual (his)story of sushi, the sensationalism and hypersexualizing of Kate (alongside other fixations with women‘s bodily presence) was a huge turn off. That, paired with the “see Spot run” style of writing made this a no-go for me. Watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi instead.

This is a remarkable book that should be savored and read carefully. Anyone who has a mixed or blended family will likely relate to much of the book and even those that don't should appreciate the multi-dimensional, heart-wrenchingly human characters.

While slow in places, this is a very beautiful book, reminiscent in ways of Agee's A Death in the Family--not in terms of the story, but in the way it reveals so many characters. I love that Patchett doesn't resort to chapters headed by the characters' names but just shifts seamlessly through the hearts and minds of the different family members.

The part of the book that is "a horror story story about loneliness in a fiercely competitive industry" is fantastic. It would have made a great Twilight Zone episode. But the length of having to endure Juniper's horrific behavior overpowered the narrative of loneliness--of Juniper, of Athena. I suspect there's just too much to say about the motivations behind plagiarism and appropriation, so I'm sympathetic.

Somehow, Erdrich manages to mix historical account, a coming-of-age-story, and an intriguing story through a rich cast of humanized characters -- from the Mormon missionaries to the Washington senators. Most of the characters are multi-dimensional and fairly well developed, but the pace of the story (stories, really) moves in fits and starts and occasionally we lose track of some threads in deference to others.

Unlike other books garnering a five star review from me, this wasn't a book I "couldn't put down" but more of a book I "had to pick back up." I only read a few pages at a time (largely because I read before bed and I'm middle-aged), but I always looked forward to tuning in the next night. I was disappointed to say goodbye to the Count, but also pleasantly sated--a rare feeling with books these days.

Read this one back in 2006 but figured I‘d share some faves here. This is a book to be read slowly, a little at a time. Every anecdote and vignette is a life lesson in miniature, but the book never resorts to pontification or blithe nostalgia. It unites believers and non-believers, old and young, men and women in an exquisite tapestry of the human condition. #Pulitzer

Well, I tried. I had a really hard time relating to the relentless onslaught of the narrative. I felt like I was a therapist, and I was simply reading a transcript of sessions of a woman in an unhappy marriage. As a child of divorced parents, it did make me think a bit, but mostly the book just tired me out. I needed more shape and direction. #TOB2025

“I began to understand what a story is. It‘s a manipulation. It‘s a way of containing unmanageable chaos.” Finally something resonates in this book. #TOB2025

This novel tries to be a lot of things, and it is, but it feels like there is a lack of pacing because of it. A worthwhile read, but I suggest lowering expectations for the "mystery" aspect, and allowing the reflections on how we co-exist to be front and center.

Picked up this non-fiction book about “identity and belonging in Xi Jinping‘s China” somewhat randomly from the library and it was definitely one of my favorite July reads. I learned a lot, and Emily Feng‘s journalistic storytelling style is very effective.

I‘m in a test of wills with this book. Just renewed it for a week because I‘m determined to finish it, but I‘m 70% there and EXHAUSTED. Sorry—unpopular opinion, I know. 😢#TOB2025

Tonight I went to a wonderful “Reading Dinner” where we sit around and read (I brought James) for awhile and then have dinner. Such a pleasure to discuss #TOB2025 books with smart people.

The guests were silenced by a painful mixture of Schoenberg and Russian folk song, derived from musically obtuse Styrian peasants, who had absorbed their atonality along with their mother's milk. The sound hurt; but it could not be ignored. Too much of it, Phryne was convinced, would curdle custard. (69)