When I was in my 20s I adored Bridget Jones’s Diary and the sequel. I haven’t read either of them in a long time, but I picked up the first to fill my “The Book was Better?” square. Bridget Jones’s Diary hasn’t aged well, in many respects. Bridget monitors her weight obsessively and freaks out any time it goes above 128 pounds, which is laughable. She smokes like a chimney. There’s the line about the Japanese being “a very cruel race.” But in other ways […]
The One I’ve Been Waiting For
For most of CBR10, I’ve been in a real reading rut. While I’ve read plenty of books I liked, there have been only a few that met my criteria for The Kind of Book I Love to Read: The story is engrossing: I have to feel like I can’t put it down. It’s not just engrossing, but also evokes specific emotions: I love a book that makes me feel happy or excited, or that awakens my curiosity or makes me want to learn something new. […]
Life Can Be Delish with a Cheery Disposish
I read My Man Jeeves a few weeks ago on a plane ride. This book was just perfect for a plane ride. In addition to being hilariously witty and delightful, it’s a collection of short stories. Since each one wraps up with a nice little bow at the end, they’re extremely satisfying, and they never get boring. For those unfortunate souls who aren’t yet familiar, the Jeeves and Wooster stories take place in the early 20th century and revolve around Bertie Wooster, an independently wealthy […]
A Familiar Scent Rose Up Into the Air, and I Remembered Something Special From a Long Time Ago
Rebecca is atmospheric, spooky, and sometimes downright scary. In it, our unnamed narrator meets the handsome widower Maxim de Winter while in Monte Carlo. They build a sort of friendship which eventually leads to a marriage (there’s no romance involved, as far as I can see), and he takes her back to his estate, Manderley. There she learns more about his first wife Rebecca, who was drowned in a sailing accident, and struggles to find her place as the head of the household. Her problems […]
My Broken House Behind Me and Good Things Ahead
Today is a good day to review this book. The Mysterious Benedict Society is a book with an intriguing beginning, a suspenseful and funny middle, and a happy end (spoiler, I guess, but it’s also the first book in a series so the I’m sure the happy ending is short-lived). It’s the sort of book you want to read or review during a garbage week like this one. Reynard Muldoon is an orphan. As the only gifted child at his orphanage, he feels out of […]
The Blood of an Englishman
I love Flavia de Luce, the 11-year-old budding chemist living in the small village of Bishop’s Lacey in post-WWII England. Flavia uses her natural curiosity and scientific knowledge to solve murders. In The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag, Flavia works to solve both the murder of a puppeteer. She soon finds it’s related somehow to the mysterious death of a young boy in her village that happened 5 years ago. This is the second book in the series, and it seems to take place […]
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