Rebecca Reads

Last June, I had just barely begun book blogging. My reading was beginning to expand beyond my comfort zone (i.e., go to the library and randomly take a book with a pretty cover off the shelf) and into the world of TBR lists. When I read the preface to Harold Bloom’s How to Read and [...]

In Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dogs: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences, Kitty Burns Florey sets out to tell why diagramming sentences is so much fun and the brief history of the art of diagramming sentences. To some extent, I felt Florey’s book was more memoir and humor than it was history. Yet, [...]

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I loved reading Vladimir Nabokov’s short stories a few months ago because his control of language is so powerful, although I did feel that some of his stories were rather odd. Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire is similar in that it is both odd and powerfully written. It is a masterwork of creation: who [...]

When I handed Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt to my son after I read it to him in the library, he got a really big kid smile on his face and he held it close to him. It’s a small book, just right for little hands. But the pleasure comes from the interaction: my [...]

Betty Smith expertly recreates the 1912 Brooklyn of 11-year-old Francie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Through Betty Smith’s words, I learned of the awfulness of enduring agonizing hunger and dire poverty in the tenements of Brooklyn in a volatile time.
But Francie’s poverty is only part of Francie’s story. As Francie grows from age [...]

I saw How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster on the “New Nonfiction” shelf at the library. I thought I’d take a glance through it when I got home, but I certainly had no intention of reading it: I have a lot of books either in progress or on my bedside table, [...]

In The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, the Queen discovers the joys of reading. As I read about the Queen’s reading journey, I found many similarities to my own reading journey. The Queen voiced my own thoughts about reading, and I loved relating to her.
But while The Uncommon Reader was a funny, easy read, it [...]

“And indeed, what is better than to sit by one’s fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against the window and the lamp is burning?” …”One thinks of nothing,” he continued; “the hours slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your thought, blending with the fiction, playing [...]

A recent blogging discussion has prompted me to ask the question: What is book banning? I’ve never thought it right to ban a book, but since I’ve recently been accused of doing just that, I thought I’d ask all of you what you think. Do I actually favor book banning? I’m stumped here.

Chris at book-a-rama brought a most interesting article to my attention.
“The End: Have We Reached The End of Book Publishing As We Know It?” is a fascinating look at the publishing industry and struggles it is facing. While I don’t think publishing is going to ever end,  I thought the article had some great insights [...]