I think the AMC television show, Breaking Bad, is probably the reason I added this book to my to-read list. And the vague sense that much of the violent crime that happens in Madison is somehow related to meth. A few years ago, I watched the … [Read more...]

This week’s Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for the top ten books you loved but never reviewed. Perhaps the books that were just too good for words. Or that you fell in love with before you started blogging. You can play along at The … [Read more...]

Wow, coming up with your own top ten list is harder than I thought, so here’s to the folks at The Broke and the Bookish who do it on a regular basis. You can write your very own top ten list and join in here. I got very excited at first when I saw … [Read more...]

How do you keep a good thing going? How do you sustain a story and characters across multiple books? How do you keep from running out of steam, especially when you’re leading people down the primrose path of a budding romance? Think the old tv show, … [Read more...]

It’s still hot in southern Indiana, but I’ve been keeping cool by staying inside (mostly) and reading Julia Spencer-Fleming’s mystery novel, In the Bleak Midwinter. This is the first book in the Reverend Clare Fergusson and Chief Russ Van Alystyne … [Read more...]

This past month was a bit of a reading slump for me, something that seemed endemic across the blogosphere. It’s summer, and everyone’s going on vacation, working in their gardens, laying by the pool. There were just a lot more non-reading things … [Read more...]

So after trying out Lyonesse and Illyria, my next foray into the fantasy genre is also a World Fantasy Award winner, which maybe starts to reveal what it takes to win the World Fantasy Award. Like Illyria, Little, Big is....hmm....confusing. But not … [Read more...]

I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately and so I’m trying some genre switching. I read A Game of Thrones a few weeks ago, and so went looking for something else in the fantasy genre that was like Martin’s novels. I realize that “fantasy twofer” … [Read more...]

Two of my favorite things in the world are eating and reading, so I love it when the two come together well. Lately, I’ve been very interested in the phenomenon of ethnic restaurants. Why, for example, is it Chinese food that’s ubiquitous all across … [Read more...]