During these cold winter months I love to curl up with a book and escape to other worlds between the pages. I bet you do, too. Finding more time to enjoy reading for pleasure is the best gift you can give yourself this year. When I think about the books I’ve read during the last year there are some which stayed with me a long time. I thought I’d share this list with you. If you’re looking for a good book to read or one to give as a gift, these may please you as much as they did me. Fiction: Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart. This sequel to her first novel, Girl Waits With Gun, continues the escapades of Constance Kopp as one of the nation’s first deputy sheriffs. Based on a true story, this second installment has me begging for more. I first became a fan of Amy Stewart’s writing when she was a nonfiction author. I loved The Drunken Botanist and you’ll find the anthology she edited this year under my nonfiction book recommendations. She has successfully crossed over from nonfiction to fiction with critical and popular acclaim. Barkskins: A Novel by Annie Proulx. Not many writers can sustain my interest on a history of the timber industry. Even more beautifully than she did in Shipping News, Annie Proulx pulled off a masterpiece. Every sentence breathes life into this incredible multi-generational family saga. As Europeans arrived in the New World in search of old growth timber…
The last week of the year is a book orgy for me. No distractions. No interruptions. It is the time of year when I can indulge in reading works I have set aside because I know I am going to enjoy them. Some of these might have ended on my list to wrap up for 2015 if I hadn’t set them aside for my end-of-year reading… [Read More]
Filed Under: Amy Stewart, Cynan Jones, Dani Shapiro, Fates & Furies, Girl with a Gun, Hold Still, Kent Nerburn, Lauren Groff, Neither Wolf nor Dog, Sally Mann, Still Writing, Sue Monk Kidd The Invention of Wings, The Dig
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When I was a teenager, I was a little hurt when my mother commented that I was a daydreamer, as in “just a daydreamer.” Apparently I spent more time than my siblings sitting and staring off into space. If I were Catholic, I would carry a bit of guilt for daydreaming, but my mother gave me Buddhism, from which I learned that reflecting on things… [Read More]
This past year had many wonderful new titles and as the year comes to a close you’ll see many Best Books of 2015 lists in your newsfeed. Belarusian writer, Svetlana Alexievich won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015 and things are looking up for nonfiction writers. Elizabeth Kohlbert won a Pulitizer for The Sixth Extinction in 2015. There are many award lists of books,… [Read More]
In this day of high priced books and new technology, public libraries are an invaluable resource for authors as well as readers in general. I sometimes think my local library, the Tompkins County Public Library is beyond compare, but I constantly run into articles and posts by people around the country, around the world, who love their libraries just as much. For an author, a… [Read More]
Filed Under: author events, book clubs, ebooks, free wifi, handsell, Library Journal, public library
Amazon makes it so easy to share links with book cover images and if you’re a Prime member there is an incentive to shop on Amazon. There is just one big problem. Books and Amazon. When you purchase books from Amazon you get a deep discount and the publisher pays the author even less in copyright royalties. A percentage of pennies is a pittance and… [Read More]