by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on December 14, 2010
Feed, by M.T. Anderson This is a book that, since it was published in 2002, I have given as a gift every year. And I will continue to do so until the curmudgeon in me takes over and I stop giving people anything, ever, at all. This is the beacon of all YA fiction, the [...]
by Jean-Paul Sparta on December 3, 2010
Librarians must hate me. I borrow books on the slightest whim, tattoo them indiscriminately with ink, hang onto them forever and refuse to use a book mark, favoring the “dog ear” method of place-keeping. This latter tendency affords an interesting opportunity for observation, however. For instance, whilst reading Ha Jins collection of short stories A [...]
by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on November 24, 2010
There is something special about hearing a piece of writing exactly the way the author intended it to sound. That is not to say that all Englishmen sound the same (even though, admit it, they kind of do), but Ralph Fienne’s renditions of Rudyard Kipling’s most famous stories and tales add whatever the British version [...]
by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on November 11, 2010
It’s hard to give a book a bad review when the book’s Author Relations Representative flatters you by requesting a pre-release book review. It’s even harder to give a book a bad review when the book comes in the mail with a corresponding swag T-shirt, even if said T-shirt is an XXL and therefore unwearable. [...]
by Derwood Hunsdale-Talbot on January 18, 2010
For a book that could have been the Holy Grail for wordies everywhere, Emily Arsenault’s The Broken Teaglass was a let down. The setting for a brilliant mystery novel is there: an intriguing job, a saucy love interest, an unsolved murder, creepy neighbors – books greater than you and me have been built on a [...]