Educating Petunia (Free subscription) | 29/10/2009
Green Angel by Alice Hoffman This little book has been lounging on the kids' bookshelf for a while. I bought it second-hand mainly for the cover. I could not find a pic of the back of the cover which is too bad because it is just as emotionally evocative but contrasted. Where Green, the protagonist, is lonely and searching on the front, she is transformed into Ash, someone untrusting and full of pain....
Educating Petunia (Free subscription) | 24/10/2009
"When we'd devoured every spoonful of our dinner, my neighbor brought out a cake made of nettles. There was no icing, no candles, and the color was faintly green. A cake such as this should have been too bitter to eat, but I found I preferred it to any I'd had before. I ate every crumb, and still wanted more." ~ Green Angel by Alice Hoffman Okay, so this is taking place after a terrorist...
Educating Petunia (Free subscription) | 24/10/2009
So far I have finished 1 book and participated in all the mini-challenges. This new challenge was to pick 3-4 books and create a sentence with the titles. In case you can't read that, it says: After all these years, Lolita lost and found atonement. And I think Lolita is probably grateful for that atonement, don't you? My next book is Green Angel by Alice Hoffman.
Blades Out (Free subscription) | 23/10/2009
Grub Street , a Boston-area non-profit creative writing center, has an annual " From the Desk Of " postcard auction, where they mail 30 authors blank 5x7 postcards and give them free reign to do whatever they want to them. The resulting artwork is offered up for auction on their site - grubstreet.org . This year's amazing crop includes postcards by Alice Hoffman (her postcard is seen here),...
BrontëBlog (Free subscription) | 15/10/2009
Via GalleyCat we have found a project launched on WowOwow: Words Move Me , where readers and writers are asked for the books which inspire them. Fourteen Sony Readers will be given away to the contributors. We have found, a Brontëite usual suspect Alice Hoffman giving her opinion about Wuthering Heights: I always return to Wuthering Heights , Emily Bronte's masterpiece -- the greatest psychological...
Literanista (Free subscription) | 27/09/2009
Latino and Jewish in America: Brooklyn resident Moshe Nunez shares his unique cultural identity as both a Latino and Jewish American. I thought this was really interesting and I laughed when he showed us the cilantro and jalapeños in his fridge (like some weird episode of Cribs ). I also like that he speaks to history of the "Marranos or secret Jews (also known as Anusim)who were Sephardic...
The View From Here (Free subscription) | 21/09/2009
Here’s what I love about book shows. And this: …and this… …and this… …and this! Amy is as talented as she is gorgeous. I inhaled this book, a magical story in the tradition of Alice Hoffman. It’s getting starred reviews all over the place. Amy’s a songwriter (”Everything” by Michael Buble, anyone?) and a poet, and she brings her artistry...
The Written World (Free subscription) | 04/09/2009
In the month of August I read 36 books, which brings my total books read for the year to 273. Young Adult Reads: The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen Devilish by Maureen Johnson Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse by Kaleb Nation Skinned by Robin Wasserman Nobody's Prize by Esther Friesner Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock The Bride's Farewell by Meg Rosoff The Wolves of Willoughby...
Smart People I Know (Free subscription) | 03/09/2009
In a time of e-books and other digital technology, it’s important not to lose sight of the greatness of books themselves. I came across this article by Alice Hoffman (here at NPR.org) that reminded me of that greatness, and the greatness of this book in particular. I read it ages ago, but the story and [...]
Mike's Writing Workshop & Newsletter (Free subscription) | 22/08/2009
Watch What You Say Online - Or Pay the Consequences By Angela Wilson Alice Hoffman acted like an idiot when she Tweeted nasty comments about a book reviewer who was just not that into her latest, The Story Sisters. For those who didn't see it, the author of Practical Magic called the reviewer a "moron" and urged fans to call and email the reviewer to tell her the same thing. Hoffman even...
cumulus (Free subscription) | 10/08/2009
As I write this, my camera is uploading to my computer 189 pictures that I took last week on our trip to Montreal. I'll get them edited and posted to the slideshow at the bottom of this blog when I get home from work this afternoon. For now I'll just say that we had a great time, ate great food (including peanut butter dumplings at a hole-in-the-wall noodle bar), and got a smidgen better at parlez-ing...
Savvy Verse & Wit (Free subscription) | 10/08/2009
Welcome to another Mailbox Monday, sponsored by Marcia at The Printed Page . We've got books. . . yes, more books, this week. Ready for a photo of the beauties? From the bottom, up: 1. The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl for a TLC Book Tours on October 22. 2. The Walking People by Mary Beth Keane, which I won from Peeking Between the Pages . 3. Picking Bones from Ash by Marie Mutsuki Mockett from the...
The Written World (Free subscription) | 09/08/2009
Friday I finished Fire by Kristin Cashore. The review will be following on Tuesday. Anyway, I am in love! I considered Graceling one of my favourite reads so far this year, but you can consider Fire on that list now, too! I read an ARC of the book, but I have to mail it back to its owner. That's okay, though, because I have had Fire pre-ordered for a while now! So, you know that I am not very impatient...
49 Writers (Free subscription) | 05/08/2009
This week, we're getting ready to put up a guest post we received via email. It's sharp, funny, thoughtful, and (in my opinion) a great read. But it has also forced me to consider -- make that, learn -- our editorial policies. Even I had forgotten what those policies actually were (Deb was the one who was organized enough to get them written and posted). Here they are, in part (in reference to comments,...
Plainfield Plaintalker (Free subscription) | 31/07/2009
My church book club is not meeting this summer, but I have been reading a lot due to good luck at the Plainfield Public Library. Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favorite writers, and I was very happy to see "Pygmy," his latest, on the New Book shelves in June. I picked up "West with the Night" by Beryl Markham after reading a favorable review. "My Father's Tears" by John...
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