From a Facebook note: Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. [...]

By Elizabeth English (aka Elizabeth Minogue) Read: June 2010 Rating: Sigh. I have been waiting to read this book since I read The Prince (Jan ’06). I loved that so much that I immediately set my sights on the only other book under this name. Alas, The Linnet does not live up to The Prince’s [...]

By Joan Johnston Not Read: May 2010 Rating: Ungh Truly disappointing. I wanted to flesh out my Men In Kilts category, and I just couldn’t bring myself to finish this. Scotland, approximately Regency-era-ish? Hard to know. I wasn’t too keen on the opening chapter, but, hey, openers are hard. Kitt’s father, the head of Clan [...]

By Kay McMahon Not Read: April 2010 Rating: AUGH Coming out of Beyond Heaving Bosoms, I naturally wanted to indulge in some of the best/worst of the genre. I swapped for this book a short while ago and figured it was as good a place to start as any. But the Smart Bitches have just [...]

By Candy Tan and Sarah Wendell Read: April 2010 Rating: BWAHA! By god, I love the Smart Bitches! Their fabulously hilarious blog, SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.com was the perfect platform for their snarkage, but it couldn’t really contain everything about the genre. Blogs are topical, this book is more an overview of the genre as a whole, while [...]

By Laurell K Hamiltom Read: April 2010 Rating: Phwoar I tried really hard not to let them all run together, but they did. Rather than try to pull the last three books apart, I’m just going to shove ‘em in one post and mention what lasting impressions I have. A Lick of Frost I was [...]

By Laurell K. Hamilton Read: March 2010 Rating: Engrossing First, let me just say that that cover is a total plot-tease. It shows a woman’s belly, with a nice little round to it, and her hand just so… The series is about a woman trying to get pregnant. You are plot-teasing me, you stupid cover [...]

By Kristin Cashore Read: Feb/Mar 2010 Rating: Worthy Graceling was a gift, from someone who swore it was excellent. It should be, it has the endorsement of Tamora Pierce. It is a good book, with a good world, and enough momentum to keep one reading. I won’t say I adored it, but it was very [...]

By Johanna Lindsey Read: Feb 2010 Rating: Convoluted There’s a LOT of fun to poke at this thing. Before I have fun, let me say that it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t really good, either. BOOK-IN-A-MINUTE, Git-style (Yes, that means spoiler) Roseleen: I am a history professor with a penchant for old weapons. Look at this [...]

Once upon a time, I discovered a wonderful, wonderful book. Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted is immerses you in Ella’s world, giving you a best friend as well as an adventure. Then Hollywood got their hands on it. And THEY RAPED IT. Below is an off-the-cuff rant I wrote in 2004, before the movie was [...]

By Barbara G. Walker Not Read: Feb 2010 Rating: *zones out* I’m trying to be good, really I am. But 50 pages out of 170 isn’t such a bad run… The book is awkward and boring and it reads like what it is–a work of fiction by a feminist scholar that has been described (by [...]

By Judith E French Read: February 2010 Rating: A bit muddled I bought this book because, well, it’s called The Barbarian and it has a laughably swoony cover. I mean, c’mon, what’s more classically romance novel than a dude’s face all up close and personal while he gaze intensely at you, all the while holding [...]

By Joanne Harris Read: December 2009 Rating: Delicious I saw the movie ages ago, but I don’t remember it very well. A good deal of the book felt familiar, which means the movie did bear some similarity to it. Not that anyone would really care when they could gaze on a GORGEOUS Johnny Depp. The [...]

By Kate Forsyth Read: ~2002, November 2009 Rating: Gripping Hoo-! I was up MUCH later than intended last night, polishing off the last of book 6, which I read right on the heels of #5. Good reading, there. When I say gripping, I mean it. The last third especially… The Skull of the World follows [...]

By Johanna Lindsey Read: October/November 2009 Rating: Fun! Do not be fooled by that innocuous cover in the Amazon preview. DO NOT, I SAY. That is a redesign, to appeal to modern readers. Why? Because this would never pass muster today: I’m not sure it passed muster then, either. My edition is more orangey, but [...]

By Helen Fielding Read: October 2009, repeatedly since ~2002 Rating: v.v.v.v.g. Bridget Jones is a classic of our time. She can’t be anything but. Plenty of people have gone on and on about how this book changed womens’ literature to chick lit (for better or worse). When I first read it, I was sixteen and [...]

By Kate Forsyth Read: Sept-Oct 2009 Rating: Nostalgic Number four, in what was meant to be a trilogy. I had always liked this one because it stars one of my favorite characters: Finn. Fionnghal was born a princess, heir to the MacRurach clan, but was kidnapped by Maya’s regime to use as a tool. The [...]

aka The Julie/Julia Project aka 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen aka My Year of Cooking Dangerously aka a movie with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams By Julie Powell Read: August 2009 Rating: Nifty Yeah, this is one of those books that is suddenly on everyone’s mind–or just was, anyway. The movie version [...]

By Allan Appel Read: August 2009 Rating: Disappointing The back copy for The Hebrew Tutor paints a picture that is enticing: Under threat of nuclear war and the gorgeous California sun, the two [Norman and Bayla] forge a tentative truce. They may not be learning Hebrew, but through the miracle of motorcycles and the epiphanies [...]

By Kate Forsyth Read: July 2009 Rating: Comfortable So, Lachlan and Iseult have won their throne! But now the land is covered in Bright Soldiers and the coasts are being raided by Fairgean. Maya the Ensorcellor is at large, and her followers are planning an insurrection. The Righ goes to war. There’s isn’t really a [...]

By Kate Forsyth Read: Way Back When, July 2009 Rating: Bonny Book Two in the Witches of Eileannan is a big ‘un. It covers TWO mega-battles/wars, and a giantass cast of characters. I love it. And plenty of men in kilts. Not much fetishizing of the kilts, but plenty of kilts. And women kilting their [...]

By Kate Forsyth Read: Early 2000s?, June 2009 Rating: Love I owe one of my good friends a debt of thanks for turning me onto these. At the time it was just the first two on the shelf and we all thought it would be a trilogy. Imagine our delight when it turned into SIX [...]

By Elizabeth Lowell Read: June 2009 Rating: Cool? Yeah, so, I’ve talked about how dangerous library book sales are, right? Right. I found me some romances. Proper swooning cover romances. I mean, check this inner cover out. Pink satin sheets, hair spread wantonly across pillows, limbs tangled and toes curling. Oh yeah, and he’s got [...]

By Emily Bronte Read: March 2009 Rating: Poison I give up. I quit. I want nothing more to do with this torturous mess. I decided it was time to try Wuthering Heights because my TiVo had picked up a documentary on the Bronte sisters, which was of course full of people who think they’re the [...]

by Judith Lindbergh Read: December 2008 Rating: Woah I mean, seriously, woah. I’m still trying to sort out what I really think about this. I mean, it was good. It was really, really good. I can totally appreciate this as a writer, and an experienced reader. I’m not sure if that means its a good [...]

By Diane Johnson Read: November 2008 Rating: Mmph. Right, so. I saw the movie ages back and don’t remember much about it except that I liked it more than my mother did, and she thought it was very disappointing. The book is… strange. I wish we’d read it in one of my writing classes because [...]

by Robert C. O’Brien Read: Middle school?, July 2008 Rating: J’adore If you have never read about Mrs. Frisby, you are missing are a wonderful, crucial piece of childhood. I was given the movie, The Secret of NIMH (also reviewed below, when I was really, really young. Both my parents enjoyed watching it with me, [...]