Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 9, 2012, 9:00 am
In Living, Henry Green accurately captures life in an English factory town in the 1920s. Unfortunately, that is all that is good about the book and everything that is not. His descriptions of the hard and risky labor of the factory floor, the back-stabbing squabbles of management, and the drudge...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 8, 2012, 9:00 am
Spinning the Law: Trying Cases in the Court of Public Opinion by Kendall Coffey  All lawyers love to tell war stories about their courtroom battles or other litigation skirmishes. Kendall Coffey has more than his fair share. Most lawyers will practice a lifetime and never, in the middle of fina...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 7, 2012, 9:00 am
My journey started at dawn, when thankfully it was still cool.  I had joined the poda-poda queue forming under the lone palm tree that offered the only shade.-- Green Oranges on Lion Mountain by Emily Joy.  This is a British doctor's memoir about working for two years in Sierra Leone. It is fascin...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 5, 2012, 7:01 pm
Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). Metroreader hosting in February. Please stop by her fun blog to see what she is re...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 5, 2012, 9:00 am
Laura at the Library of Clean Reads is hosting an I Love Italy Reading Challenge.  Because of the irresistible overlap with my own European Reading Challenge and the Venice in February challenge, I am signing up. I am going for the introductory, "Ciao Italia" level, to read 1 - 3 books. BOOK POSSI...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 4, 2012, 9:00 am
Black Sheep Dances is hosting an Eastern European Reading Challenge that dovetails so nicely with my own European Reading Challenge that I am excited to sign up. I signed up to read four books "about or by an author from any of the following regions: Croatia, Ukraine, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Hu...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 3, 2012, 9:00 am
" . . .and the Golden Rule, Dr. Joy?"-- Green Oranges on Lion Mountain by Emily Joy (ellipses in original).  This is a British doctor's memoir about working for two years in Sierra Leone. Publisher's Description: When your Dad can crash his airplane into two water buffalo, life is unlikely to go a...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 2, 2012, 9:00 am
(Following a quote from The Canterbury Tales.)  So does Geoffrey Chaucer describe the convening -- at the Tabard Inn in Southwark on the southern bank of the River Thames -- of twenty-nine pilgrims.-- Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic E...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Feb 1, 2012, 9:00 am
  The Rubber Band (1936) is Rex Stout's third mystery featuring the corpulent Nero Wolfe.   As always, Archie Goodwin narrates and handles the leg work, while Wolfe orchestrates the detecting while tending his orchids or drinking beer. This time around, Wolfe drops a long-time banker client to ...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 31, 2012, 9:00 am
Two teasers this week from what I lovingly refer to as "random memoirs" -- interesting books about real people living unusual lives. Both are published by OSU Press. My father squats across the fire from me, stripping willow switches for weenie sticks with his fishing knife.  His closed lips are ...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 30, 2012, 9:00 am
Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). Alyce at At Home With Books is hosting in January. Please stop by her wonderful b...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 29, 2012, 9:00 am
Although vampire stories had been around earlier, it is Bram Stoker's sensational 1897 Dracula that promulgated the iconic version of the garlic-hating, crucifix-fearing, blood-sucking nobleman as Count Dracula, king of the vampires. The novel is told through a series of documents, including journ...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 28, 2012, 9:00 am
Margot and Joyfully Retired is hosting the second Foodies Reading Challenge in 2012 and I am very excited to sign up. This was one of my favorite challenges in 2011; I read six food books for it.  My wrap-up post is here, with links to my reviews. This year, I am signing up at the "Pastry Chef" l...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 27, 2012, 9:00 am
A green ravine creases northeast Seattle, draining into Lake Union near the University of Washington. -- The Thunder Tree: Lessons From an Urban Wildland by Robert Michael Pyle, published by OSU Press. From Library Journal: "The Thunder Tree" was a huge, hollow old cottonwood in which the author an...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 26, 2012, 9:00 am
2011 Battle of the Prizes, British Version: January 1, 2011 to January 31, 2012 This challenge pits winners of the English Man Booker Prize against winners of the Scottish James Tait Black Memorial Prize in a British Version of the Battle of the Prizes.  Good thing it ran until the end of this ...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 18, 2012, 9:00 am
Emma at Words and Peace is hosting the Books Published in the First years of My Life Challenge. It is sort of like the Birth Year Reading Challenge that Hotchpot Cafe hosted, but with more years.  If Hotchpot hosts the Birth Year challenge again in 2012, these will overlap. I am signing up for t...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 17, 2012, 9:00 am
When the strings start popping and the package we have wrapped in our denial and delusions starts to come undone and chaos begins to spread as it does on sinking ships and airplanes falling out of the sky, even the most atheistic person on board says, "Oh, God!" And so did I.-- Side Trips from Cow...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 16, 2012, 9:00 am
Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). Alyce at At Home With Books is hosting in January.  Please stop by her wonderful ...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 15, 2012, 9:00 am
  High Stakes is a particularly good Dick Francis book, which says a lot, since they are all first-rate. It follows the tried and true Francis formula of a hero who is successful in a particular profession, has a connection with horse racing, and gets drawn in to solve a crime. In this case, St...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 14, 2012, 9:00 am
  This is my first year to sign up for the popular What's in a Name Challenge, now hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Click the button or the link for more details and to sign up. Here's How It Works Between January 1 and December 31, 2012, read one book in each of the following categories: A book with a...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 13, 2012, 9:00 am
Four times a year, I do a review of the books I've read so far.  In January, that review covers all the books I read the last calendar year. This is the second of my quarterly blog assessment posts.  This one takes a look at my author lists over in the right-hand column. The first part addressed...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 13, 2012, 9:00 am
It's July 9, about half-way through the process of writing this book and nearly a year since Margetty and I went to the Big Hole and retrieved the black amulet.-- Side Trips from Cowboy: Addiction, Recovery and the Western American Myth, by Sandy Compton.  That's an opener to catch my attention, ...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 12, 2012, 9:00 am
Four times a year, I review the books I've read to that point and see what kind of progress I've made on my books lists and reading projects.  This winter review session is always my favorite because it is a wrap up of the books read by the end of the last calendar year. This is the first of thre...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 11, 2012, 9:00 am
  Stu at Winstonsdad's Blog is hosting a challenge-type event called Henry Green Week from January 23 to 29, 2012.  Click on the button or the link for more details or to sign up.  I read Green's best-known book, Loving, because it was on the modern Library's Top 100 list.  It didn't knock my...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Jan 10, 2012, 9:00 am
Just then Kazuko came back carrying the ingredients for tea on a flat wooden tray.  She pushed the tray into the room as a woman in a restaurant might and then slid in after it. -- Soldiers in Hiding by Richard Wiley. This is the story of a Japanese-American jazz musician trapped in Tokyo after Pea...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Nov 1, 2011, 9:00 am
Max wondered if Miss Pitchford had been alluding -- in her blushing, genteel, old-world way -- to the true nature of the relationship between her two former pupils.  Looking back, he realized that what she had expressed was skepticism regarding the existence of a girlfriend in Jasper's life.-- Wick...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 31, 2011, 9:00 am
Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit is hosting in October.  Please go by and visit her won...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 31, 2011, 3:01 am
I love Halloween. Halloween done my way, that is, which means nothing scary and nothing ugly. I like pretty, cute, and vintage Halloween -- jack-o-lanterns and little kids in funny costumes.  Almost every year of my adulthood I've had a dinner party on Halloween for friends who don't live in trick...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 30, 2011, 1:30 pm
We have had one of the best autumns here in Portland -- glorious leaves, crisp weather, not as much rain as usual.  My neighborhood has gone all out for Halloween, everything from an over-the-top haunted house that kids line up around the block for, to magazine-pretty displays of pumpkins and India...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 29, 2011, 9:00 am
  "The tea has got cold." -- Cathedral by Nelson DeMille. A deceptively benign beginning for a story that takes off like a shot and never stops. This counts as one of my four choices for the Chunkster Reading Challenge. It is only the second book I've read for the challenge, so so it is a good thin...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 28, 2011, 9:00 am
Wanda Batton-Smythe, head of the Women's Institute of Nether Monkslip, liked to say she was not one to mince words.-- Wicked Autumn by G. M. Malliet.  The title made this a good pick for Halloween week. And isn't Nether Monkslip a great name for a village? This is the first in a promised series fea...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 26, 2011, 9:00 am
Pilar Martinez stumbled into her mother's apartment, which had once been a church in El Segundo Barrio in Downtown El Paso.-- From This Wicked Patch of Dust by Sergio Troncoso.  This book was released last week. THE BOOK: In the border shantytown of Ysleta, Mexican immigrants Pilar and Cuauhtémoc...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 25, 2011, 9:00 am
... OSU Press. But if I say "the old Hackleman place," his face ... road off the rim, the way the two-story house sits ... this book than personal anecdote above would suggest.  But that is ... anticipated. Waterston founded and leads the popular Bend, Oregon literary festival ... ask anymor...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 24, 2011, 9:00 am
Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit is hosting in October.  Please go by and visit her won...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 23, 2011, 1:34 pm
... 's Children (reviewed here) 1980: William Golding, Rites of Passage 1979: Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore 1978: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea (reviewed here) 1977: Paul Scott, Staying On 1976: ... Storey, Saville 1975: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust 1974: Nadine Gordimer, The Conservation...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 21, 2011, 9:00 am
I ranched in the heart of Oregon's outback for nearly three decades.-- from the Prologue to Where the Crooked River Rises: A High Desert Home by Ellen Waterston. Waterston founded and leads the popular Bend, Oregon literary festival, The Nature of Words. She is also offers workshops and retreats for...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 19, 2011, 9:00 am
Tables -- sheets of plywood, actually, set atop saw horses -- line the center of the Stehekin Community Hall that on Sundays serves as the Pentecostal church.-- Potluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness by Ana Maria Spagna, essays about "the enduring human connection to place" from OSU Press. Sin...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 18, 2011, 9:00 am
If you really want to see something horrifying, try shipping a cupcake.  Trust me, it's not pretty.-- Cakespy Presents Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life by Jessie Oleson. Her clever solution is to bake the cupcakes in little jars, ship them, and frost them upon arrival. They also just look cute ...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 16, 2011, 10:03 pm
Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here). Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit is hosting in October.  Please go by and visit her won...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 15, 2011, 7:22 pm
  I read The Anti-Death League for three reasons. First, Kinglsey Amis is a favorite of mine (I have a penchant for Mid-Century, dipsomaniacal, British authors). His big hit, Lucky Jim, has been a personal favorite ever since I read it in college and I thoroughly enjoyed his Booker-winning The Ol...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 14, 2011, 9:00 am
It's true: stuffing cinnamon rolls with chocolate chip cookie dough really does make them more delicious.-- Cakespy Presents Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life by Jessie Oleson. That gives you a good idea of Oleson's over-the-top take on desserts. Oleson is the author of the irresistible CakeSpy ...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 13, 2011, 9:00 am
My wonderful friend and Renaissance woman Kirsten Rian has once again amazed me with her versatile talents. Kirsten and photographer Lauren Henkin just produced Deck of Chords, a full deck of offset-printed playing cards. Each card front features an image of Lauren's from an unpublished portfolio t...
Comment - Like

Rose City Reader posted an article on Rose City Reader - Oct 12, 2011, 1:31 pm
Real Women, Real Wisdom: A Journey into the Feminine Soul is a collection of 17 essays by women "of a certain age," all reflecting on what they have learned from the stories they have lived. Maureen Hovenkotter, author of 42 States of Grace: A Woman’s Journey (reviewed here), edited the collecti...
Comment - Like