I recently finished The Group by Mary McCarthy (487 pages) and Babycakes by Armistead Maupin (316 pages). I LOVED The Group!! I finally have a book to recommend to Straight People (although this book is not devoid of lesbians!). I think I first heard about it in Gloria Steinem’s review of Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan, so I thought I’d…[Read more]

Today I finished reading “The Book of Negroes”, by Canadian author Lawrence Hill (470 pgs). The title of the novel comes from the historical document of the same name , which recorded the names of thousands of Black Loyalists, who left the US because they were promised a better life in Nova Scotia. In the US, the book was marketed under the…[Read more]

Oh another thing. I just left for summer work at a place where I can’t have many books, so can I just say that I read 97 pages of Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen and 56 pages of The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Cuelho. Both were good thus far, and I’ll finish them when I get back. When does “the summer” end for this, @internrachel, @julia1?

@internrachel @julia1
I also finished The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (117 pages) last week, which was so fucking adorable and so relevant to my life. The main character, Charlie, was nothing like me in most ways, but I think deep down most/all teenagers/young adults have the same feelings about some things. Also, the whole…[Read more]

@internrachel @julia1
Just now I finished Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier (400 pages). THIS BOOK WAS AWESOME! I literally could not stop reading it. I started it at about 11 am and it’s now 2 am. I didn’t even stop for meals; I ate while I read.
In Transylvania, there are five sisters raning in age from 16 to 5 years old. The book is…[Read more]

@internrachel @julia1

This weekend I devoured Alice Echols’s Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture (239 delightful pages). Echols is both an English and gender studies professor and a former DJ (at this amazing sounding but sadly long-defunct club in Ann Arbor called the Rubaiyat), so she has the requisite scholarly detachment…[Read more]

dear @internrachel and @julia1 and bookstraddlers,
This week I’ve read two fairly short, quick reads. The first was The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, 256 pages, which is about a young woman named Taylor who gets the hell out of her small Kentucky town as soon as she can and finds herself unexpectedly looking after an abandoned toddler who she…[Read more]

Okay, so I have a double-whammy for you, @internrachel, @julia1. I read a book, as well as listened to it.
I downloaded the audiobook of The Alchemist, by Paulo Cuelho a long time ago, when I was on a taking advantage of everything free on iTunes spree. I had never heard the title before and I didn’t really care to look at it. I remember…[Read more]