I’m not a fan of Jezebel.com, though I do wind up there sometimes. Sreya sent me a very me-oriented link, however: Alanna: The First Adventure: For The Crossdressing Knight In Every Girl. Jezebel takes a look at YA lit they loved as kids, and evaluate them now. (Not a new concept, but something that does [...]

By Clive Sinclaire Read: May 2010 Ratings: Pleasurable My senior thesis was a story rooted in Japanese mythology surrounding  sword smithing. I spent years working on this thing, and have done a lot of research. Of course, I wasn’t able to lay my hands on anything really useful in the months leading up to my [...]

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 Marni Bates HCI Teens Louder Than Words is a series aimed at teenagers about teenage experiences. Atypically, the volumes are also written by teenagers. It may seem bizarre to ask teenagers to write memoirs—as Marni says, her siblings laughed—but Louder Than Words is dedicated to “reinforce[ing] the message that the experiences of teenagers and [...]

By Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, Frédéric Lemercier Read: October 2009 Rating: Wow There’s no other word for it than, “Wow.” Every few pages, there it is again–Wow. Didier Lefèvre was a photographer, who became involved with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 1986, he accepted an assignment to enter Afghanistan with an MSF mission, [...]

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 Margaret Atwood Read: August 2009 Rating: Nonnegotiable The whole time I was reading this I wondered why none of my writing classes assigned us to read it. Margaret Atwood is one of the Big Ones. She’s made her mark on modern literature, and at least some of her books will still be considered worth [...]

Shen The RB Git: I have to finish reading Negotiating With the Dead, then Julie & Julia. And hopefully that will take me to the end of August and Nonfiction Month will be over. Sreya (of the Pocket): Hahahaha Sreya (of the Pocket): I could’ve recommended to you SO MANY GOOD NONFICTION books Sreya (of [...]

By Natalie Angier Read: August 2009 Rating: Nifty W:IG is an interesting blend of science, statistics, theories, and anecdotes. Angier is a journalist and a feminist, who has clearly put in a lot of time studying her subject, both for work and for personal interest. She’s pulled her findings and ideas together in this book, [...]

By Chip Heath and Dan Heath Read: July 2009 Rating: Sticky! Written by brothers who found they had been approaching the same question in different ways, Made To Stick is a guide to what makes ideas “sticky.” Why do some phrases stay with you when others don’t? What makes a successful mission statement? Heath and [...]

The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy and the Stories of 18 Women Who Escaped By Andrea Moore-Emmett Read: August 2009 Rating: Hard-hitting My bestie has often lamented that I do not read enough nonfiction. So naturally the last time I was at her place and saw some nonfiction [...]

The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the World’s Best-Loved Books By Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy Read: May 2009 Rating: Nifty What is it? A bunch of short article/chapters about famous authors, and their famous books–and what made the authors write those books. This is a nice little book to browse through between longer projects. At [...]

By Noah Lukeman Read: July 2008 Rating: Ponderous Apologies to Mr. Lukeman, ‘ponderous’ is not the right word. Last week Sreya and I were in B&N, and this was one of the books on the bargain shelf. We split the cost, and have been looking through it. We spent an enjoyable few hours in the [...]

By Betty Friedan Getcher own @Amazon.com Read: May/June 2008 Rating: Phwoar I consider myself a feminist, am part of my school’s feminist group, and yet I’ve never taken the Feminism 101 class. Which leaves me to educate myself. I have a copy of Wollstonecraft that a class in political theory never got around to. There’s [...]

By Jenyne M Raines Read: May 2008 Rating: Appalling. Somehow this book wound up in the teen section of the public library. Keep it away from your impressionable young women. The advice is not black-specific, it’s very general and you could find most of it in a myriad of similar titles. The most ‘black’ thing [...]

Welcome to another edition of “Mini-Reviews Clumped Together Because I Was Too Lazy To Dedicate a Full Page to Each One.” This one covers books read between July and December 2006. (#22-51 of the 50 Book Challenge) Included: The Invisible Ring (Anne Bishop, Black Jewels spin-off) The Seven Daughters of Eve (Non-Fiction) Rebel Angels (Libba [...]

Since time and interest don’t allow for every book to get its own lengthy review, I’m going to do some mini-reviews. Clod save us all. This install comes from the 2006 50 Book Challenge, which is going great guns, thanks. Books 1-20 were read during this time period. This mini review includes: Yentl’s Revenge (Essays [...]

By Chris Baty Rating: Fwee! Read: March 2006 Mr. Baty, you’ve done it again! Taken another step in the movement, that is. In a really, really cool way. Chris Baty founded NaNoWriMo (go check it out, you know you want to), and like all good founders, he went on to write a book about it–a [...]

Here’s something new. I had to read these for class. I hated both. So you’re going to get DOUBLE the fun in one review! Yay! The Trial Franz Kafka Get it if you dare @Amazon.com Rating: Ugh Read: Feb 2006 I am now quite certain Kafka was on snuff. Or something. You know those dreams [...]

By Lucy Kaylin Rating: +serene+ Read: February 2006 I’m taking a class on Womens’ Spirituality this semester and this was our first long assigned reading. I really, really like it.

By William Styron Rating: Truthful. Read: March 2005 A first-hand account by Styron of his own battle with depression, and suicide. It began as a lecture, was modified to an essay, and now stands 96 pages long by Amazon’s estimate. Modern readers should be forewarned that the style is semi-formal, with a rather genius ability [...]