If you need something to read on a cold January evening or weekend, why no consider a mystery set in Victorian England? Old Scores was the first mystery I read by Will Thomas. As well as providing good entertainment, I learned something about Japan’s relationship with both England and America in the nineteenth century. Some …
I’m reviewing a very good book on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – for children. This book was translated from French and was written by a Psychiatrist from Quebec who specializes in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dr. Annick Vincent. My Brain Needs Glasses: Living with Hyperactivity is well-translated and very understandable. It is written so …
It will soon be Burns Night. Burns Night commemorates the birth, on January 25, 1759, of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns. The evening is celebrated with a traditional supper: haggis, bashed neeps and champit tatties. I find the lilting rhythms of Burns’ poetry very soothing and so every year I considering celebrating Burns Night, just …
Like many of you, I am spending some time this week reading, much more than usual since I have some time off for the holidays. One of my new books is an essay, The Gifts of Reading, contained in a small beautiful Penguin book, by Robert Macfarlane. Macfarlane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. …
I am about to ruin my husband’s Christmas. I am going to review the book I bought for him and, since he gets this blog in his inbox, he’ll know all about this book before he gets it as a Christmas gift. Not to worry, though, he’ll still love to read it. Why will he …
Penelope Fitzgerald is an author whose work I have just begun to read. I reviewed The Bookshop a few weeks ago and this past week I have finished The Gate of Angels. Set in Cambridge in 1912, just before World War I, The Gate of Angels chronicles how an adventure of love. Fred Fairly is …
This is a book about Iowa written by a Swedish woman. I am going to review it, even though I am not sure how this could be possible. The edition I read was translated from Swedish and, since this was an international best seller, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend clearly had many happy readers. …
I had this book, edited by Allie Esiri, out of the library for about three weeks before I realized, “You’d better buy it.” Allie Esiri’s life work is poetry and short pieces of literature. Along with this book, she has edited A Book of Poems For Every Day of the Year and The Love Book, a collection of …
Last week, I picked up a copy of Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop while browsing in a Boston Bookstore. I had not previously heard of this author, but I was intrigued by her biography. She first published a book in her sixties. She won the Booker Prize at age 63 for her novel Offshore and was …
This book is a collection of short biographical articles about various creative people, from Maya Angelou to W.B. Yeats. Curry focuses in his essays on his subjects’ work habits and why they allowed them to be creative and productive. Exhaustively researched, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work contains an excellent bibliography and notes, allowing the reader …
