Tag: Author

Books

Book 304: The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike #2) – Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

Geoff W

I don’t care what people say. I love J.K. Rowling.

She is a skilled story-teller and talented writer. With the two types of reactions most people have when they hear her name, it’s easy to see why she wanted her name kept far from her works as Robert Galbraith. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen, but this was a bonus for those of us who would never have discovered them.

On one side, you have those with visceral negative reactions to her and her writing. (A lot of the time by those who’ve never read her books.) And on the other side, you have the people who adore them solely because it’s J.K. Rowling; Obviously. Thankfully, I’m somewhere in the middle. I can both appreciate her as an evolving writer and find fault in her skills as a story-teller, especially in her post Harry Potter novels. (I’m still waiting for the, hmm Harry Potter isn’t as wondrous as I first thought it was moment, but it still hasn’t happened.)

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ARC, Books

Book 296: Confessions from a Coffee Shop – T. B. Markinson

Geoff W

And she’s back! Now don’t get me wrong, Markinson (TBM)’s last novel, Marionette, wasn’t bad and was excellently written, it just wasn’t for me. However, Confessions from a Coffee Shop harkens back to A Woman Lost in humor and fun! I flew through this and couldn’t help but smile the entire time I read this novel. I received a copy from the author and received no compensation for my response. If this review sounds at ALL interesting you should request a preview copy from her here.

I said above that TBM is back and the reason I say that is because she’s return to what she knows and what I can assume is a comfort zone for her. I don’t fault her one bit for stretching her writing muscles in her second novel, but I’m so glad she returned to her strengths!

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Updates

April 2014 Recap

Geoff W

2014 04-03 Visit to the BooksmithI couldn’t start two monthly recaps in a row with book typos (don’t worry there is one), but I do apologize in advance, this is another long post!

so instead I thought I would start with one of my #100happydays photos. I took this photo on day three when I went down to sell some of my read books during lunch. Shockingly I only came away with two books (one a present) and ordered a third! Again, you’ll hear more about those later.

Let’s see, what else has happened this month? I had an AWESOME nerdy weekend a few weekends ago and loved every minute of it, even though it was exhausting. I started dating again. I ran a 5k and crossed running a sub-36:00 5k off my 30 x 30 list. As I mentioned last month, I launched a new blog (launch post) with my best friend from growing up called Now Entering Adulthood (actual link) about our last few months of our twenties and the first few of our thirties. Oh AND I created a Tumblr to compile my writings on both blogs and my Instagram pictures together! And well generally I had a great month!

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2013 Challenges, Books

Book 200: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein

Geoff W

The writing in this book is quite possibly the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read. The premise of the book, however, is incredibly convoluted. Regardless, I am glad I read the book because it counts for multiple challenges this year (Back to the Classics Reading Challenge and Mount TBR Reading Challenge).

When I first thought about reading this novel, I knew it wasn’t an autobiography, but I wasn’t quite sure where this fit into the myriad genres available. Ultimately, this book falls into some gray area between biography and autobiography. This felt like Gertrude Stein’s biography told through Alice B. Toklas but written by Gertrude Stein. And what I found out while reading this was that Paris was an incredibly small place and everyone knew everyone. It was incredibly strange how everyone was connected, but at the same time it was awesome the people who stumbled in and out of the novel including numerous painters and authors.

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Culture Corner

Oh Hey, Big City…

Geoff W

This is why I love living in Boston, a ‘big city.’

Yesterday I was desperately searching for five copies of Christopher Klein’s Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands for an event we’re having next month when I found out Emma Donoghue, author of Room, was in town doing a reading last night and question and answer session at Harvard Bookstore.

Title page of "Room" signed by Emma Donoghue Needless to say I was very excited. I have been patiently waiting for Room to come out in paperback for over a year and while my step-mom was visiting this past week she bought me a copy of it. If you haven’t heard of Room, it’s told from the perspective of five-year-old Jack, who is the son of a kidnap victim whose entire universe is one room. The book has gained increasing attention over the past year and won the Irish Book Award and appeared on the shortlist for the Man-Booker prize. Ms. Donoghue was brilliant, she was hilarious and serious and well spoken and had researched all aspects of the book and it made me very excited to actually get the chance to sit down and read the book.

But the icing on the cake of living in a big city, is that I found out Marge Piercy will be in town tomorrow night reading from a new book of poetry (The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems) at the Brookline Booksmith and needless to say I am very excited and will be going to get my copy of Woman on the Edge of Time autographed as well as a copy for a good friend in the UK. I wrote a paper on Woman on the Edge of Time that caused a bit of hoopla in my department and needless to say it will be interesting to see what she has to say.

In case you were wondering, I did find five copies of Klein’s book at the AWESOME Brookline Booksmith.