Devourer of Books

I’ve pretty much been reading for the last two hours straight, pausing only to microwave leftover Thai food (yes, pad kee mao is sort of an odd breakfast, I know) and constantly reset the wireless router.  My internet seems to be going out pretty regularly.  I’ll reset it and it will work for about 5 minutes, so I haven’t visisted anyone else yet.  Maybe that’s good, though, I got so distracted seeing what everyone else was doing last time, that I got a lot less read than I had hoped. 

I think a nap may be coming in the next couple of hours.  I didn’t sleep all that well last night and I’m not going to be doing any caffeine today, so I already know I won’t

Continue reading Read-athon: End of Hour 2

I didn’t even set an alarm this morning, but my body must have known it was time for the read-athon, because it woke up a nice 15 minutes before the start (allowing me to start not TOO late, since I still had to write this post).  I’m starting on the couch with my pile of books, because my husband is nowhere near ready to wake up and it is too dark to read in our room without turning on a light.  I’ve got a nice pile of books to keep my company, though!

I still haven’t figured out where I’m starting.  ”Descartes’ Bones” is one that I need to just go

Continue reading Good Morning Read-athon

The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

A.J. Jacobs is a secular Jew living with his secular wife in (largely) secular New York.  A.J. began to wonder, however, if his was missing out on something with this whole religion thing.  So many people seemed so into it, after all.  Particularly after the birth of his first son, A.J. began to wonder what exactly would ground his son in the future, or help him to grow up to make good choices.  So A.J. decided he would follow the Bible – the ENTIRE Bible – for a year.

I had read A.J.’s previous book, “The Know-It-All” about reading the entire Encycopedia Britanica in

Continue reading The Year of Living Biblically – Book Review

The prize summary of the 100th Review Giveaway!

Before I tell you who won, let me give you some numbers.

149 people entered this contest, with a total of 455 entries (from posting on blogs and commenting on reviews).  That’s an average of just over three entries per person.  Kathy of Bermuda Onion and Word Lily had the most entries with 14 each.  Surprisingly (and sadly), this didn’t translate to wins for either of them.

By far the two most popular books were “The Guernsey Literay and Potato Peel Society” and

Continue reading The Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For…

Okay–here was an interesting article by Christopher Schoppa in the Washington Post.

Avid readers know all too well how easy it is to acquire books — it’s the letting go that’s the difficult part. … During the past 20 years, in which books have played a significant role in both my personal and professional lives, I’ve certainly had my fair share of them (and some might say several others’ shares) in my library. Many were read and saved for posterity, others eventually, but still reluctantly, sent back out into the world.

But there is also a category of titles that I’ve clung to for years, as they survived numerous purges, frequent library donations

Continue reading BTT: Sitting on the Shelf