Today’s book review is The Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson. Bill Bryson is one of my absolute favourite authors, mainly driven by two quite different books: Neither Here nor There (a story of backpacking around Europe) and Mother Tongue, which is his history of the English language. So I hadContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The complete Polysyllabic Spree – the Diary of an Occasionally Exasperated But Ever Hopeful Reader, by Nick Hornby (interestingly only available on Amazon UK, not US). This is a collection of Nick Hornby’s monthly essays on the books he’s read that month, from Believer magazine (aContinue Reading
Today I’m reviewing one of the Quarterly Essays – The History Question; Who owns the past? by Inga Clendinnen. Quarterly Essays are 20,000 words published quarterly, with responses generally in the next issue. I’ve previously reviewed Clendinnen’s Dancing with Strangers, which is a detailed deconstruction and pieceing together of the historyContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The World According to Y: inside the new adult generation, by Rebecca Huntley. I probably wouldn’t have bought this book if I didn’t have some flying to do (four hours each way to NZ meant I needed more than just some magazines), but I’m glad IContinue Reading
Today’s Book Review is Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt. I read, and loved Angela’s Ashes, when it first came out. I had avoided Tis, as the reviews were mostly unfavourable. But I expected quite a lot of this book, given how good Angela’s Ashes was, and also given that IContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The Long Tail: why the future of business is selling less of more, by Chris Anderson. Originally a Wired magazine article, then workshopped as a blog, it got the biggest response of any Wired magazine, so Anderson decided to develop it as a book. I had beenContinue Reading
Today’s book review is Why TV Is Good for Kids : Raising 21st Century Children, by Catharine Lumby and Duncan Fine (who incidentally are married to each other with two small children). Despite the title, its not just about TV. Its a series of chapters (in some cases rants) aboutContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, by Jared Diamond. I read this book after his other two; Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (a worthy Pulitzer Prize winner), and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (notContinue Reading
I’m not one for memes, much, but how could I resist a book one (from susoz)? Edited to add: I’ve put links to all the others I’ve found in my sidebar, as I’ve found the variety of choices fascinating (and there’s a few books I need to read, too). 1.Continue Reading
I occasionally peek at Library Thing, a fantastic idea which links people’s libraries up with each other (via Phantom Scribbler and Raising WEG). The great thing about it is that you can have a look at similarities between your library and other people’s to help you figure out what bookContinue Reading
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