Dr. Ang came through for us.
See over there on the right where it says Read it or Rant? Well there is a new one up thanks to Dr. Ang, she reviewed A Lion Amoung Men for us. You guys wanted the Read it or Rants to have their own page, so go on over there and join in the fun.
Filed under Friends-All three of them, Read it or Rant | Comments OffYou asked for it!
See over there on the right hand side where it says Read it or Rant? That, my darlings, is the online book club you requested. If you have read any of the Twilight series, or want to read them and do not care about spoilers, you should just head right on over there and let me know what you think. The comments on that page will be open for quite awhile, so go start reading if you need to.
Filed under Read it or Rant | Comments OffFrid–Er, Wednesday’s Read it or Rant: Gods Behaving Badly
“Hey You, this is your conscience posting. Remember that whole Read it or Rant thing? Weren’t you going to like post every Friday or something? I seem to remember you thinking you were going to post an insightful book review every single week. You were going to have readers flocking to your blog to quench the thirst they had for literary genius. So, uh, what happened?”
Stupid conscience. Don’t I do enough for you already? Yes, I know, I have been a total slacker on the whole Read it or Rant thing. The perfectionist side of me just has a real problem reviewing drivel, and for the most part? That is all I have read lately. Trashy bodice rippers, and my magazines, (Cookie, Parents, Marie Claire, New Beginnings, and whatever MMIL gives me when she is done for those of you wondering.) Maybe my brain thinks it is still in the sixth grade. During summer vacation I read The Babysitter’s Club, and Sweet Valley Twins, and hit it hard in the fall with To Kill a Mockingbird, and Beowulf.
To make up for it, I am inviting all of you to write reviews and then send them to me. “Good Lord, Hey You, can’t you even write your own damn blog anymore?” (Do you think my conscience would take the Lord’s name in vain? Say Damn? I don’t think so either. This must be someone else’s conscience, probably JHJ’s.) Anyway, I get GOBS of email, so make sure you put “Read it or Rant” in the subject line. Maybe I will actually get around to reading something else sometime soon, but in the mean time, Ang (who I can’t link to because she has no blog, get on that Ang!) has graciously agreed (actually it was her idea, but I plan on taking credit for it just like the reviews! Bwhaha!) to review something I have on my to read list already, Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips. Take it away Ang.
This book was loaned to me by a good friend when I visited a few weeks ago. Because I was already in the throes of 2-3 books at that time, it was a while before I got a chance to read this one. It was worth the wait.
Gods Behaving Badly is about ancient Greek gods living in modern-day London. They are all sharing a house and living somewhat normal lives. Artemis (dog-walker), Aphrodite (phone sex operator), Apollo (TV psychic, along with the help of his sibyls), and the others are cramped into a tiny, filthy house and are finding that their powers are waning. Athena (scientist) is trying to find ways for the gods to regain their powers, but, like most brilliant minds, she is unable to adequately communicate her findings to her fellow gods. Apollo falls into unrequited love with the housekeeper, and her would-be boyfriend is none too pleased with the situation. Not to ruin the book for anyone who might actually want to read it, a catastrophic event occurs, the Underworld is involved, and an unlikely hero emerges.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was smart and funny, and the hero and heroine are so cute you just want them to kiss already. It also gave me a bit of a refresher course in Greek mythology. I giggled throughout the entire thing, and it only took me a few days to finish it (granted, I’m not working and seem to have a lot of free time on my hands). If, however, you have delicate sensibilities, you may want to pass on this book. It freely used the f-word, and contained a few intimate proceedings. But, if you can overlook that (which I can, seeing as Stephen King is my favorite author and he oh-so-freely uses the f-word) the characters are lovable and the dialogue is hilarious. All in all, two enthusiastic thumbs up! A good summer read.
Thanks Ang! It will stay on my to read list.
Filed under Friends-All three of them, Read it or Rant | Comments OffJHJ’s cave, oh and Fridayish’s Read it or Rant: The World’s Smallest Unicorn.
I can’t remember if I have already put this out in the blogeshpere or not, but The Brother lives in Las Vegas. He is sleeping on an air mattress in the guest room of his friend’s apartment, job hunting and knitting. Mostly, I hate that he is there. I don’t think he is doing anything there that he could not do here, or at least in Capital City. I think he is missing important stuff here. Oh, and even though he drives me insane, and makes me feel really stupid really often, I MISS him. One of the good things about him being gone is that we all have free access to his cave. When he was here his room was strictly off-limits, and we were never even permitted to peek inside. I thought for awhile there that he was performing illegal surgery and selling kidney’s on the black market in there. Or running a drive through Argument Clinic from his bay windows. But now! Now I go in there all the time! I am taking DVDs and books as often as I want. I let The Son play on the piano in there. With his elbows! And Forehead! His bed is way more comfy than the guest-bed at my parents house, so if I need to nurse The Son, than I go in there. I have a huge stack of movies and books that will have to go back before JHJ comes home (probably just for a visit, but I can hope otherwise), and I have no idea what order they were in. His careful organization system is shot all to hell. ( Can you all hear JHJ groaning and squirming in his seat from here? I can!)
So a couple of weeks ago I went in there with every intention of grabbing a David Sedaris book, (Eat, Pray, Love is still checked out at the Library). The Son was climbing the bookshelves and pulling down decorative containers and throwing Buddhas (seriously dude, what is with all the Buddhas, I understand you may not consider yourself Methodist anymore, but you certainly are not Buddhist!). I was trying to hurry, because I do not want stuff to get permanently broken, so when I got out to the car, I realized that somehow I had not grabbed Dress your family in Corduroy and Denim, but The World’s Smallest Unicorn. So I read it. And LOVED IT!
It is a compilation of Short Stories by Shena Mackay, and I devoured it. I adored almost every single one. I had so never heard of this chick before, but am now actively seeking out every word she has ever written. My favorite stories in the book were Crossing the border, about a retirement home for clowns (!) and Death by Art Deco, a young girl becomes her inspiration’s apprentice, oh and Trouser Ladies, lesbians before it was done. Oh and I can’t forget the Index of Embarrassment, don’t we all have relatives like that? Ones that we appease because we are afraid we will turn out to be just like them?
Her language is just exquisite, her descriptive prowess is amazing for example, “This splay-footed eater of processed foods” (dog) and “…an old woman in purple pompommed slippers, with her hair piled in an elaborate confection of peroxide peaks and swirls on top of her head, cirlces of rouge on white powdered cheeks and a crimson mouth in which her own lips were lost somewhere. Giggling with relief Flora said, I see I have come to the right house!” “What do you mean?” “…The house for retired clowns.” “Next door.”
Anyway, I loved the book, I highly recommend it. And I am glad I missed David Sedaris, because I probably would not have read it any other way. Next up! David Sedaris, Really!
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, Read it or Rant | Comments (5)Hey You! Why is the Friday’s Read it or Rant late so often?
Well faithful readers, and by that I mean my mom, I am actually reading the books before I review them. Cover to Cover, and some times that takes longer than a week. It turns out that I am in the minority of reviewers, the professional’s out there either just skim books, or listen to a couple of tracks on a cd, or even simply make an educated guess.
For example, Maxim published a review of the Black Crowes’ new album, Warpaint. It didn’t like it much, giving it only 2.5 stars out of 5. There was just one problem. The album hadn’t been released yet, and advance copies hadn’t been made available. So how had the Maxim reviewer heard the album? Turns out he hadn’t. Maxim explained to the Black Crowes that the reviewer made an “educated guess.” Maxim later released this statement: “It is Maxim’s editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize to our readers.”
This is not a new practice, as the Scottish reverend Sidney Smith famously remarked, “I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.” So anyway, it may be late, but I really do READ the books I am reviewing, so take that disgruntled reader! **plbzzzzz**
Filed under Read it or Rant, Soap box | Comment (1)I should have known it was the crap book causing the problem.
I got lots of emails and a few comments yesterday telling me thehuckablog was broken! *gasp* NOOOO not my online-link-to-the-outside-world-baaaabee!!! Husband fix it! Yeah. He has been too busy so I just deleted the offending post. I will sum it up for you. The Book blew. (blowed? Blew just sounds weird.) Site all better. The End.
Filed under Read it or Rant | Comments OffFriday’s Read it or Rant: Mothering your nursing toddler
Mothering Your Nursing Toddler by Norma Jane Bumgarner
I very well may be the only one interested in this one, but ya know what? My Blog! I get to choose what to review, but it will be short. This is about Mothering! Mothering your toddler! Mothering your nursing toddler! Wow, that was a really good title for it, huh. It was pretty good, it did answer a few questions I had, such as why does The Son switch sides every thirty seconds? Answer, he likes a fast flow. Books like this are always good to read when you are having a bad nursing week, or feeling frustrated, or just in general wondering if you are a freak for still nursing. This book was a huge rah-rah yeah extended nursing, and to be honest…I like that. It may insult your intelligence sometimes, or Hey You may just know more about nursing than the average bear. There were a few things I did not care for, for example I really felt that it pushed reeeeaaaally extended nursing a little hard. Like if I do not nurse until he is four or five I quit too soon. Really? Wow, whatever. Also, it does not give much advice for nighttime non-co-sleeping nursing (my baby sleeps in his crib, in his room, with the door shut 87% of the time). This was a hard core AP parenting book (check out this for an intro to Attachment Parenting, so good it is on my favorites list.), so if you are not AP then this is not the book for you (and chances are you are not really nursing still anyway.)
The chapters on fathering the nursing toddler and marriage with a nursing toddler were excellent. This book really acknowledges how much of a family commitment breastfeeding is. I got this book out of our LLL book trunk, and it fits the LLL standards and beliefs perfectly, so a great read for my fellow LLLers. So in other words, if you plan on extended breastfeeding read this book BEFORE you have toddler so you know what to expect. If you disagree with Attachment Parenting and are Ferberizing your kids already, or formula feeding, then this is so not the book for you.
next up? Irresistible Forces by Danielle Steele.
Filed under Breastfeeding, Parenting for Dummies, Read it or Rant | Comments (2)