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Review: The Magicians
Right off the bat, I'll say that I really liked The Magicians. Yes, it feels a little like the author, Lev Grossman, took a dozen popular books and mashed them together. But, at least for me, I thought...
View ArticleReview: Life from Scratch
Life From Scratch by Melissa Ford is about a woman starting life over. Rachel Goldman feels helpless - she's divorced, on leave from her unsatisfying job, and lonely in her little NYC apartment. She...
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Review: Rampant
I loved unicorns when I was a little girl. I was convinced - 100% convinced - that somewhere out there, unicorns were real. I remember going to see the circus one year when they were showing a unicorn....
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Announcing...
We are happy to announce that our daughter, Baby M, was born at 9:21 AM on November 29th! M weighed 9 lbs. 1 oz. and was 20 inches long. We are all healthy and happy, and enjoying getting to know each...
View ArticleBack!
Maternity leave has come to an end and I am back to work (part-time at first), so with it, I've decided to try to blog again. Starting Monday, I plan to post a review or two a week, plus other items of...
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Review: The Order of the Odd Fish
Before I even start the review, I'll make a disclaimer that my sister gave me The Order of Odd-Fish and it was written by a friend of hers, James Kennedy. I don't think I've met him, though, so no bias...
View Article2011 Pritzker
As you've probably heard by now, the winner of the 2011 the Pritzker Prize has been announced: Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura. I am not too familiar with him, to be honest, but the images...
View ArticleReview: The Secret Garden
Here are my thoughts on The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett in one sentence: Not as good as I remembered it. Doesn't that suck?For those of you who haven't read it, or read it so long ago you...
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Friday Update
This morning, little M rolled over! She's done it before, sort of by accident, but this morning she did it three times in a row! M is four months old now and just gorgeous. Here she is, looking rather...
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Review: Bird by Bird
It seems like Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott took me forever to finish. I started it eagerly - I had heard so many good things about it and the beginning was great....
View ArticleReview: Heidi
Yodelay, yodelay, yodelayheehoo! There's no actual yodelling in Heidi, the classic children's novel by Johanna Spyri. Nor does a cherubic Shirley Temple pop out to say all the charming platitudes that...
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Review: The Cookbook Collector
The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman is about two sisters, one a successful, practical-minded business woman, and one a somewhat flighty perpetual grad student, as they navigate life and love...
View ArticleReview: My Man Jeeves
My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse is one of those books that everyone says is funny, but I'm always suspicious that it actually is. So, get this - it is! My Man Jeeves is a collection of eight short...
View ArticleAlvar Aalto
There's a very nice slideshow up on Slate today about the residential design of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto: A Low-Key High Modernist: The unpretentious houses of Alvar Aalto. Villa Mairea is one of...
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Series Thoughts: Anne of Green Gables
While I was out on maternity leave, I re-read the entire Anne of Green Gables series. I really enjoyed reading the series but something struck me that I'd never thought of before: these books are kind...
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Review: Outliers
I really enjoyed Outliers: the Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. The premise of this book is, what makes high-achievers (and low achievers, really) different? Gladwell argues that the answer lies...
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Review: Dreams from My Father
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is a memoir by President Barack Obama, written after he was the first African-American elected president of the Harvard Law Review. It was first...
View ArticleReview: The God Engines
This book - The God Engines by John Scalzi - was intense. Normally, half of my review of a novella or short story is kvetching that the story was too short, the author should have delved deeper, etc,...
View ArticleReview: Magyk: Septimus Heap, Book One
There are a lot of books out there angling to be the next Harry Potter, aren't there? That's certainly how the Septimus Heap series was being advertised when I picked up the first volume, Magyk (last...
View ArticleAn update, of sorts
Um, hi, everybody. It's been pretty quiet around here, hasn't it? I posted only 14 times in all of 2011. and most of those were posts I had at least started before my daughter was born. What did I do...
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