I know nothing about Hip Hop. I’m a middle aged white lady who has never spent much time in the Hip Hop centers of culture, or much energy on music. I do love history though, and I don’t need to know much about a subject to want to know how it came to be. Ed Piskor’s Hip Hop Family Tree, Vol. 1 is amazing and well worth a read, even if Hip Hop isn’t your thing. I recognized maybe one name out of ten, but I […]
We need a new category for Mystery-Love Story-Religious Thrillers
The Wonder brings so many of my favourite elements together – a mystery, faith, a love story, and Ireland. It basically hit all the right notes for me. Anna is a young Irish girl, who is gaining fame for being able to live without eating for weeks. Lib, an English nurse and self-proclaimed skeptic, is hired to observe and substantiate the claims that this is an honest-to-goodness miracle. Tensions develop between Lib and Anna’s family, as well as members of the community, as she tries […]
I liked this better than the other one
Maybe it’s better for a combination of reasons: the subject matter is more gruesome and eerie and fun. This subject is very clearly a labor of love for Sarah Vowell. The voice of Abraham Lincoln is read by Stephen King, whose raspy New Englandness is nothing like you imagine Abraham Lincoln’s folksy midwesterness to sound like, but maybe it works. Like the other Sarah Voweel audiobooks, this one lives and dies based on who is reading. So this one works better not because she has […]
A courtesan with amnesia
Grant Morgan is one of the most famous and sought after of London’s Bow Street Runners. He’s made a substantial fortune solving crimes for the wealthy, but is starting to find his life a bit boring. When he’s called to the banks of the Thames to identify what appears to be a strangled woman, he is first of all surprised to discover that she is still breathing, and secondly, by her identity. The half-dead woman is Vivien Duvall, London’s most desirable courtesan. Once she wakes […]
I can get behind a literacy cheerleading effort
I liked this one. I listened to the audiobook (six discs) and I listened to it pretty much straight through as I walked and did my errands today. This tells the story of efforts to put books in the hands of soldiers and sailors during World War Two. Starting with a long discussion on Nazi censorship and propaganda and ending with the GI Bill, the book makes the long argument that the values fought for by the various sides: the prevailing of a singular idea […]
Somewhat United Themes
I liked this book just fine. I am trying to figure out if I will never read any more of Sarah Vowell’s books or all of them. I think my issue is that I have to imagine it’s a lot of the same. Not to say that the different subject matters don’t change, but the format is similar. I listened to the audiobook version which has the same issue. You have to love Sarah Vowell’s voice, which is fine by me, but more so you […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 511
- 512
- 513
- 514
- 515
- …
- 677
- Next Page »