Shouting at the screen (and the page)
*Spoiler alert: The following review of The Sixes by Kate White doesn’t tell you who did it, but it tells you who didn’t* Jurassic Park hit theaters for the first time when I was nine years old. My mother had thought about asking our live-in nanny, Lori, to come with us but in the end … Read more
Reading aloud
This week my husband and I drove down to Ohio so I could hang out with my parents while he attends a nerd conference in Boston. I decided that a good way to pass the time would be to read aloud to Dan while he drove. I had wanted to re-read Philip Pullman’s The Golden … Read more
Why the book is better than the movie (With one notable exception)
I have always loved watching TV. Yes, I said loved. I watch far too much and I blame my mother for that. She limited my TV watching when I was a kid. For a while growing up we didn’t even have a TV. (My babysitters were very bored after I went to bed.) I never … Read more
Trying to find a niche for the Nook
I bought an e-reader and I don’t like it. It’s not the wrong one for me, I did my research. The Kobo was too small, I don’t like Amazon so no Kindle for me, and the iPad provided too many distractions. I have enough trouble trying to watch TV and Facebook at the same time, … Read more
Judging a bookshelf by its covers
A few weeks ago our power went out. It had been happening during bad weather all winter, usually for just a few minutes. This time it lasted hours. Once it got down to 58 degrees we decided to head over to my brother-in-law’s for some heat and electricity. After much fussing and crying I got … Read more
Reading resolutions
I have a few book related New Year’s resolutions for 2013: Read more. This seems like an easy catch all, but with the baby and the lure of the television I haven’t been doing a lot of reading lately. I have one book upstairs in the nursery that I read while Joe naps (for exactly … Read more
Not just for kids
I spent my summer watching superhero movies. We went through all of the X-Men movies, saw The Avengers at least five times which led to rewatching the Iron Man movies as well, and after watching all three of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies my husband encouraged me to watch the 1992 Batman: The Animated Series. When … Read more
Books for baby
At the end of October I gave birth to a handsome baby boy named Joe, which means I am typing this one-handed while the little guy sleeps against my chest. When we were leaving the hospital one of the techs came in and gave me two books, a paperback picture book and a board book. … Read more
Let us now praise banned books
Last week was the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week. Each year the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom promotes awareness of challenged and banned books in the United States. Challenged books are books that individuals or groups have requested to be removed from library shelves or school curriculum. Books fall into the category … Read more
Historical fiction, with cyborgs
As a historian, I’m a sucker for time travel novels. To go back in time and observe is a historian’s dream. (We’ll never know, though, even if we were there, exactly what people were thinking and feeling at any given time in history. People are unfathomable. Some things will always be guesses.) In some time … Read more
