I’m not a product pusher, and I never thought I’d use this blog to do that. However, almost every morning when I use this I think, “I wish all my friends knew about this face scrub.” So, since I consider you friends, I’m telling you about it.
I used to be a huge fan of The Body Shop’s Tea Tree scrub. In fact, for years I couldn’t find anything to match it. And occasionally, I’d break down & buy some or ask for it as a gift. But for me, it …

I’m gearing up for reading Atonement. I’ve written here before that after two attempts, I haven’t made it. But after a recent review of The Cement Garden on Savage Reads, I thought, this will be another opportunity to reaffirm my pleasure with McEwen and ready myself for Atonement.
Boy, did it. From an academic standpoint, I enjoy reading first novels. I can approach them with concession while still looking for the bread-crumbs of what is to come in future writing. In The Cement Garden (1978), McEwen demonstrates his remarkable ability to …

My dad has a saying: “Granny (his mom) likes to fish. I like to catch fish.”
I could say something similar regarding me and books. I have friends who like to read. I like read a good book.
If I were in the first category, I might have liked Geraldine Brooks’ 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning novel March. It was well written and an interesting concept, but it just didn’t do anything for me. The story is that of Mr. March, the absentee father from Louisa May Alcott’s famous Little Women. Brooks takes …

I wrote to a friend, “I haven’t laughed this hard since discovering David Sedaris.”
I read Mark Haddon’s earlier work,  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and really enjoyed it, but I wasn’t prepared for how laugh-out-loud-funny A Spot of Bother was going to be.
Summary: George’s daughter, Katie, is getting married – but to a man the whole family hates. Including her gay brother, Jamie, whose boyfriend has recently left him. And her mother, Jean, who can’t decide if she should invite her lover to the wedding. While …

I was so excited yesterday when Jeffrey Stepakoff messaged me and offered to send several signed galleys of The Orchard – his latest novel due out July 5. I’ve slowed down on the ARCs that I request or accept, but after all the fun I had celebrating Fireworks over Toccoa, I have been anxious for this follow-up novel. It was recently named a Southern Indie Bookseller’s Summer Okra Pick!
I just received my copy of The Orchard, so I haven’t written the review, but I wanted to go ahead and announce …

After my last date with Tracy Chavelier via Burning Bright was disappointing, I was hesitant to pick up Remarkable Creatures. If you’re not familiar with her, she burst onto the literary scene several (many?) years ago with her second novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring. This was one of my very first book club discussion / reads, and I loved it! (Both book & discussion.) She writes historical fiction, most notably telling the tale surrounding how a notable piece of art came to be.
In Remarkable Creatures, she takes on paleontology and …