Sarah S. posted an article on
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Feb 5, 2012, 8:57 am
Books Read in January (click for reviews)
The Sex Lives of Cannibals by Maarten Troost: Travelogue. Bored of life in America and anxious to make a difference in the world and have an adventure in the process. Maarten and his partner head off to the remote island of Tarawa in the South Pacific.An A... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Feb 3, 2012, 3:51 pm
This travelogue/memoir by Maarten Troost is neither about sex nor cannibals, particularly, although both make an appearance on the island of Tarawa, where Troost and his partner, Sylvia, spend two years. Bored of life in America and anxious to make a difference in the world and have an adventure in ... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jan 22, 2012, 12:34 pm
... )
Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead: The Frank Meeink Story as Told ... at These Words)
I Am Scout by Charles J. Shields (reviewed ... Held Evans)
Keeping the House by E. Baker
Last Chinese Chef ... Kate Furnivall
Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins (reviewed ... Chris Bohj... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jan 20, 2012, 3:32 pm
For awhile, I was longing for the end of An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy. Please understand: I began reading it in the car on my way to my uncle's funeral. I read it in bits and pieces in the hotel room and on the way back to Tennessee. I fell asleep, exhausted from the trip, after on... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jan 16, 2012, 6:47 pm
It's the one on everyone's Top 10 lists from 2011: Room by Emma Donoghue. I put it on our list of possibilities for book club for 2012, and I got a unanimous "NO WAY!" from my friends. Who wants to read a book about a kidnapped woman and her son, who are living in an 11X11 room and visited nightly b... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jan 13, 2012, 3:12 pm
I love the title of this book because sometimes I feel like my family is filled with geniuses, and I have often wondered, if we were ranked, where I would fall on the scale. Isn't that strange? My fourth brother said that if he were ever to write a book it would be called Between James, which would ... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Dec 31, 2011, 8:39 am
In 2011 I read and reviewed 42 books here on SmallWorld Reads, and probably read a total of 10 others (juvenile fiction read aloud to my kids and/or books re-read for British Lit). This is down a few from my previous years. (See my other Best of the Years posts.) I have no excuses, other than that I... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Dec 31, 2011, 8:31 am
Diane Chamberlain’s The Midwife’s Confession was nearly impossible for me to put down—the perfect kind of book for Christmas vacation. The novel takes the reader on a wild ride of revelations in the lives of three long-time friends. Emerson, Tara, and Noelle have been a tight-knit trio for 20... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Dec 26, 2011, 9:34 am
I love Sandra Dallas. I think I have ready every one of her novels, and The Bride's House is one of my favorites. (Tallgrass still holds that spot.) Dallas knows how to create likeable characters and stories that just work out right.
In The Bride's House Dallas tells the stories of three generations... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Dec 18, 2011, 8:00 am
Look at that lovely stack of books! I am planning on lots and lots of luxurious reading time during the next few weeks, until our activities start again in January. I was incredibly lucky at the library yesterday, finding 9 books on my TBR list actually available!
Carved in Bone by Jefferson Bass (o... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Dec 17, 2011, 8:03 am
I am absolutely astounded by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun (my 2008 review here). I read the latter a few of years ago and was blown away, and Purple Hibiscus was just as powerful. Adichie is a phenomenal storyteller and a lyrical writer—my absolute f... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Oct 30, 2011, 7:00 am
Books Read in October (click for reviews)
One Second After by William Forstchen
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
Best Book of the Month
The Kitchen House. Oh my goodness! Loved it!
Read Alouds
The Phantom Tollbooth
Currently Reading
The Little Stranger by... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Oct 29, 2011, 8:32 am
One Second After by William Forstchen is our November book club choice. This is not a book I would normally pick out to read, and that's just one of the many things I love about book club.
This novel is set in Black Mountain, NC, not too far from where I live. The main character is a history profess... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Oct 15, 2011, 9:39 am
Oh my goodness. Have you read Kathleen Grissom's The Kitchen House? If not, go quickly and buy it, borrow it, or take it off your TBR pile. I wish I had another book guaranteed this good to anticipate!
The Kitchen House is the story of Lavinia, a little Irish immigrant orphan who becomes an indentur... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Oct 8, 2011, 9:48 pm
Books Read in September (click for my reviews)
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
(Pretty sure that is an all time low for my monthly reading. Yikes!!)
Special Event
I got to hear Amy Greene, author of the fabulous Bloodroot, read... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Oct 8, 2011, 8:37 am
My son, now in his sophomore year in college, switched his major to English literature in the middle of his freshman year. I never imagined the burst of joy I would feel when I heard those beautiful words, "I think I'm going to change my major." It isn't that I didn't approve of his former major (en... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Sep 24, 2011, 6:59 am
Barbara Ehrenreich— highly educated, financially comfortable— goes undercover to see what life would be like as a minimum-wage worker in America. How can someone survive on $6-7/hour?
Ehrenreich, a journalist by trade, spent a month in each of three locations—Florida, Maine, and Minnesota— a... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Sep 10, 2011, 9:22 pm
Books Read in August (Click on title for reviews)
Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich (totally forgot to review this one): dark and disturbing
Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore (Southern chick lit)
The German Woman by Paul Griner (WW2 lit)
The Judas Field by Howard Bahr (dar... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Sep 5, 2011, 9:50 am
Kate Zweig is Paul Griner's The German Woman: British by birth, German by marriage. The novel opens in WWI in Prussia at a field hospital that is about to be obliterated. Kate is a nurse and her husband, Horst, a doctor. They escape to Germany, where their lives become sheer misery, filled with terr... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Aug 25, 2011, 9:14 am
Yes, it is exactly what the title sounds like: Southern chick lit. And I’m okay with that, especially after reading a heavy duty book like The Judas Field. Who doesn’t need a little bit of contemporary southern melodrama after an intense, grizzly book about the Civil War?
Susan G... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Aug 20, 2011, 10:27 pm
My goodness. My reading tastes are so odd. This month I've read the hardcore The Judas Field and the fluffy Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, and now I'm somewhere in between with Diane Chamberlain's The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes. But I liked them all, and I really, really liked CeeCee Wi... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Aug 20, 2011, 7:53 am
My 86-year-old father and I flew out to Seattle (from Tennessee) a few weeks ago to visit his sister, my aunt. Strangely, my father did not bring a book with him for the long flight, so I gave him Howard Bahr's The Judas Field: A Novel of the Civl War. He devoured it well before the end of the fligh... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Aug 11, 2011, 10:23 am
Joan, the youngest child and only daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, is The Queen’s Daughter in this novel by Susan Coventry. I must admit to having forgotten most of the details of this medieval time period when Henry II, Eleanor, and Joan's brother Richard the Lionhearted ... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Aug 4, 2011, 10:18 am
I am fairly sure that Shilpi Somaya Gowda's The Secret Daughter will end up on my Top 10 list for 2011. I was riveted from the very first page and totally satisfied with the ending. What gets better than that? Ah yes, Gowda's writing is great, too. This isn't just a satisfying plot read.
The book o... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 31, 2011, 8:53 pm
Books Read in July
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County: LOVED
The Wednesday Sisters: Nah.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: Fabulous
Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne: Pretty good.
The Secret Daughter: LOVED!
Read in May/June but Reviewed Finally in July
Climbing the S... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 28, 2011, 1:20 pm
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County was an impulse check-out at the library, and somehow I always score well when I have the rare opportunity to peruse the to-be-shelved (i.e., just returned) books. I don't know why this book never made it to my TBR list, but I'm glad I stumbled upon it! Tiffany Bak... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 25, 2011, 4:17 pm
I put this book on my TBR list because I guess some blogger really liked it and gave it a resounding review. Yep, so, I'm glad somebody really liked it. Oh, it wasn't terrible. There was one part that even brought a tear to my eye. But mostly I just found the particular narrative style of the novel ... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 18, 2011, 9:42 pm
Ah, what's to be said about this E.M. Forster classic that hasn't been said already? Published in 1908, Forster paints the painfully restrictive, often silly middle-class English life of Lucy Honeychurch. Lucy wants more than what is expected of her, more than what the social mores of the time allow... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 17, 2011, 8:50 am
So far this year I've read 23 books and have (thus far) reviewed 19 of them. I've also read another half-dozen or so juvenile fiction books with the kids and/or for literature classes I teach.
Here are my reviews so far:
A Far Country (Daniel Mason)***Amy and Isabelle (Elizabeth Strout)****Bloodroot... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 15, 2011, 9:24 am
Padma Venkatraman offers yet another perspective on World War II in Climbing the Stairs— that of an Indian family whose lives are forever altered during the Indian struggle for independence.
Vidya is a 15-year-old girl who wants to further her education rather than following the traditional route ... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 5, 2011, 12:25 pm
As Robin Oliveira's first novel, My Name Is Mary Sutter has set the standard high for the author. This novel set during the Civil War was so fabulous, so compelling that I mourned when I had finished it. I mean, not like sobbing uncontrollably or anything like that, but I was bummed. I wanted more.
... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 3, 2011, 3:34 pm
I don't know what's happened to my reading life; I really don't! I somehow cannot get caught up on my book reviews or make much progress in reading. It seems like just days since I wrote this April and May in Review post, and I still haven't written most of those reviews. But here goes…
Books Read... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jul 2, 2011, 9:57 am
Year and years ago I read The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, and I loved the book. It was funny, sharp, poignant, and scary. About a decade later, McLaughlin and Kraus check back in with Nanny, Mr. and Mrs. X, and Grayer (now 16) in Nanny Returns.
They probably should have let th... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jun 22, 2011, 9:39 am
Like hundreds of other book clubs across America, Sarah Blake's The Postmistress was our June book club pick. Normally I would never pick a book with a cover like this one, as it cries out "cheesy romance novel!" A faded rose atop a letter---ugh. But I had read several reviews of the novel that soun... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Jun 5, 2011, 5:04 pm
Now that summer's here, I'm trying to get back on track with regular book blogging. I've got a bit of catch-up to do with reviewing, but I'm getting there…
Books Read in April and May (click for my reviews)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (re-read)
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Comes... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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May 28, 2011, 6:34 am
It’s been decades since I last visited Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy between the pages of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I believe I was in my early 20s when last I read it, and I haven’t even watched any of the Pride and Prejudice movies, I confess. It’s not that I didn’t love the book... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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May 21, 2011, 8:52 am
The Remains of the Day is my second Kazuo Ishiguro novel, and it is utterly different than Never Let Me Go. Or is it?
The latter is set some time in the future; Remains of the Day dwells in the past. But both focus on people whose sole job it is to serve others, even when it means sac... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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May 14, 2011, 8:45 am
Cholera strikes the people of Port McKinney, Washington, in 1892. Drs. Parks and Hardy, both New Englanders fairly new to the West Coast, race to stop the disease before it wipes out the entire town.
The writing itself isn’t great— somewhat choppy. The characters are flat and rather ... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Apr 30, 2011, 8:53 am
I picked up this book by Daniel Mason on a whim at the library, based really on the cover and the possibilities described on the jacket. I'm glad I did. This isn't a cheery novel. It has somewhat of a post-apocalyptic feel to it, although it certainly isn't post-apocalyptic.
Isabel and her family li... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Apr 22, 2011, 8:35 am
Geraldine Brooks continues to amaze me: Year of Wonders, People of the Book, and now March. I am so happy that I have her newest, Caleb's Crossing, to look forward to.
I must admit I wasn't terribly enthused about the idea of March. I knew that the story was about Mr. March, father of Little Women'... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Apr 20, 2011, 9:12 am
When I was a teenager—probably around 14—I remember a summer that mostly involved sitting in a beach chair by the lake in my backyard, reading Agatha Christie novels and taking a swim or a sail every now and then. I had a great tan that summer, and I remember the satisfaction of finishing one my... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Apr 10, 2011, 7:15 am
March was a fantastic month for reading. The books were many and for the most part really good. I hope this bodes well for the rest of the year!
Books Read in March
(Click for review)
The Diary by Eileen Goudge
The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
New Stories from the South, 2010
Mennonite in a Little... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Apr 9, 2011, 3:51 pm
I read this little book by Eileen Goudge one afternoon in March and forgot to record/review it. It was such a short little happy book, not filled with any profound truths or passionate writing. Just a nice Saturday afternoon book, one that makes you feel that all is right with the world.
The story g... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Mar 29, 2011, 9:54 pm
Chris Bohjalian sure doesn't get stuck in one subject matter and stay there. The Buffalo Soldier was totally different than Skeletons at the Feast, and The Double Bind is just completely different from those two. I like that about him.
The Double Bind was completely mesmerizing. I loved the concept.... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Mar 28, 2011, 7:25 am
I've been reading this annual collection of the year's best short stories of the South for over a decade now. The 2010 collection was put together by editor is writer Amy Hempel, who appears, by her biography, to be solidly northern. I wonder why this anthology is put together by someone from the no... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Mar 22, 2011, 8:11 am
I should have known that any book recommended to me by two people that I consider my soul-mates should be amazing. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress was recommended to me by Kristina and Kris, who don't know each other but should. I'd love to link to Kristina's review of the book, but the bookseller... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Mar 16, 2011, 2:33 pm
The cover of this book alone made me want to read it, even though I know sensibly that book covers are often deceptive. But in the case of the apparently close-to-real life Born Under a Lucky Moon by Dana Precious, the cover matches the book.
I laughed a lot during this book. Precious reminds me a l... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Feb 27, 2011, 4:11 pm
Books Read in February
(click for review)
Bloodroot by Amy Greene
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
On Agate Hill by Lee Smith
New Stories from the South 2010
Favorite Book of the Month
Bloodroot. I just loved it.
Books Read to the Kids
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
Movies from Books Watched
The Silver C... Comment - Like
Sarah S. posted an article on
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Feb 26, 2011, 8:18 am
I've been reluctant to write this book review, because writing a review forces me to face that I really am finished with this first novel by Amy Greene.
I didn't want Bloodroot to end. I miss it.
Bloodroot is a story of four generations of the Lambs, an Appalachain mountain family both blessed and c... Comment - Like
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