Book Reviews & Reading

Earlier today, Victoria (AKA @sfgirlbybay) tweeted a link to a great post about why books need bloggers. And over on her blog, Cirilia posted a photo of her crafty books and listed her favourites. We should all do this! Here are my crafts books (most of them). They're not going to live in this book...
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What's the first Earth Day you remember? I'll tell you mine. It was 1990; I was in Grade 9. There was a big event at a park in downtown Albany, NY, and I was very excited to go. And I had also just gotten my period for the first time. Obviously, I was mortified and...
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This was the year I slowly backed out of my book club, wanting to read what I want when I want. Which is good, because I seem to have entered a stage of extraordinary impatience when it comes to the books I read. I don't recall ever putting down as many books as I've...
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One of the sad publishing-industry events in Vancouver in 2010 was the shuttering of Duthie Books, one of the last great non-used indie bookstores in town. I admit I had mixed feelings about its closing. I loved the idea of Duthie's, but I'd often felt kind of intimidated going in there. And the rhetoric coming...
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I've been thinking about my book-buying habits lately. Partly because I've been reading ebooks on my iPad and partly just because I'm fascinated by the evolving business of publishing. So I decided to be systematic. Here's a list of the books I've read in the last year, and either how I found out about them or...
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In the last week I've read 1165 pages of young-adult oppressive-dystopia reality-television-bashing coming-of-age revolution fiction. The Hunger Games trilogy chronicles the tale of Katniss Everdeen, a teenager whose big heart, indomitable spirit and rage land her on the front lines of a fight to change a reality she never really thought to question. It's sometime in...
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Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing author Shannon Okey on Twitter* as part of her blog tour to promote her new book, The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design. We had so much fun, and such a productive conversation, that I forgot to do the giveaway we'd planned. D'oh.
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Shannon Okey has written a lot of books, but I admit I'm the most excited about the one she's just self-published. It's called The Knitgrrl Guide to Professional Knitwear Design, and, well, its topic is obvious. She's just started a blog tour to promote the book (see the schedule, below), and next Tuesday, July...
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Hey, when you were a kid, did you ever feel compelled to seek legal advice? Or play golf? Yeah, I didn't think so. So you can imagine my confusion over why international bestselling author of legal thrillers John Grisham's new foray into kid lit has so far scored 3.35 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. Half...
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An uncomfortable, riveting, beautifully written novel about a schizophrenic teenager named Will, his mother, and the detective looking for Will after he went off his meds and on the lam in the New York City subway system in search of the girl he believes will help him save the world from global warming. I consider...
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