I love horror and Halloween so it is crazy that I have never read the Haunting of Hill House. This year as I was searching for a spooky book to start the season, I kept seeing this book on all the lists. After about the 100th time that I saw this book I realized that it is not in fact The Hills Have Eyes (yuck) and then I felt like an idiot for ignoring this book. Don’t judge me! We’re all guilty of skimming!

It took my brain a few pages to get used to Shirley Jackson’s superior writing style. I had just finished a popular fiction book that was only okay, so my brain was a little lazy at first. After that, I was completely engaged by the characters and creeped out by the sadistic house. I made the mistake of reading this right before bed several times. I had to consciously remind myself that nothing creepy has ever happened in my house so I could go to sleep.

Don’t assume that because this book is 60 years old that it is a safe quaint Halloween read. Most readers will be spooked by this book, and it has moments of real violence. However, it is not gory or obscene the way that a lot of modern Horror can be. This is the perfect book for anyone looking for a haunted Halloween ghost story. 

Share your thoughts on this book. Comment below:

This book is raunchy. I guess this has been a popular genre for a while, the VERY personal memoirs by bloggers? I only discovered this genre for myself this year when I finally read Jenny Lawson’s, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. Let’s just say Lawson “turned me on” (pun intended) to a whole new type of book.

The audio of, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, had me laughing in the first minute. I stepped outside to take my morning walk, when the author described herself as “35ish, but I could pass for forty-seven to fifty-two, easily; sixty something if I stay up all night”. This had me. I was barely containing my insane laughter as my neighbor resisted the urge to ask me if I was okay.
​
This memoir is full of self-deprecating humor, which is of course hilarious. However, if I’m being honest, the author is too hard on herself. The author continuously comes down on herself for being lazy, but all evidence suggests she is anything but… She works 50 hours a week, writes a blog, dates, and goes out clubbing. The thought of her lifestyle is absolutely exhausting.

I found this book to be entertaining, but I would be hesitant to recommend it to almost anybody. This book should come with a warning label: may cause uncontrollable laughing, flinching, and moments of disgust. May not be suitable for people who are allergic to cats, heterophobic, homophobic, racist, people with bad backs, heart disorders or bad credit scores. 

​Share your thoughts on this book. Comment below:

The Dalai Lama is one of the most admired people in the world. I certainly find his story and his life to be both interesting and inspiring. He has participated in the creation of several books that could undoubtedly be categorized as “self-help”, including his newest collaboration, The Book of Joy. I read this book in two sittings, not because I didn’t like it or didn’t find it to be interesting, but because I really wanted to be able to get the most out of this book. I felt like reading it all at once would not have allowed me enough time to process the Dalai Lama’s wisdom. This book is very rich in content.  
 
The book was edited by Douglas Carlton Abrams and features a week long interview between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu of South Africa. The book covers three broad topics, the nature of true joy, obstacles of joy and the eight pillars of joy. Each section is narrated by Abrams, he fills in missing back story and creates a sense of place for the book, but the teachings of the Dalai Lama and Archbishop are basically in interview format. You might be tempted to skim this book because of that, but you should plan to read this slowly, allowing time to reflect on the messages.

This is one of those books that you could read again and again and always come away with a new insight. The main philosophy that I gathered from the teachings was that joy comes through service to others. There is a lot more to this book, but the Dalai Lama and Archbishop warn against focusing on yourself and encourage everyone to turn outward not inward. Imagine the world, if we all lived to serve each other. There is definitely wisdom in that philosophy. 

You may also like my No Spoiler Review of Eat, Pray, Love.

Share your thoughts on this book. Comment below:

I judged this book hard when it came out. I just couldn’t understand how a book about abandoning your life to go on vacation for a year could possibly be helpful to anyone. Why did this book resonate with so many people? I just couldn’t figure it out, it didn’t seem like it offered helpful solutions for everyday people. Then again, this book was so popular, it had to have some value, right?

I was inspired to read this book, while I was reading the Book of Joy, I became interested in researching other perspectives on the subject of finding lasting happiness. This became kind of a compare and contrast investigation. Eat, Pray, Love was the most popular book on the subject of happiness that I could think of, so I decided to have an open mind and read this book.

Eat, Pray, Love follows the author on a year long trip to Italy, India and Bali after suffering a devastating divorce. In Italy the author pursues pleasure and basically does whatever she wants for three months, heavy emphasis on eating. In India she moves into an Ashram to pray and meditate, basically full time. In Bali she looks for balance with a medicine man, but this part of the book becomes a little unstructured. She does spend time with a medicine man and a healer, but she also just hangs around with locals and starts dating. I guess real life doesn’t always fall into neat categories.

I think the journey was restorative for the author, but I’m doubtful that it is the path to lasting happiness. I fear that taking a year off to focus on yourself would make it very hard to come back to the incompetent bosses and irate patrons of the real world. I get pouty when I come back from a one-week vacation, what would a year off do to me?

I don’t agree with a lot of this book, but I do respect the author for publishing this work. This is a very personal book and the author is very brave to have written it, knowing that the world is full of unhappy critics. I thoroughly enjoyed the parts that read like a travel guide, there is some very interesting information about the Balinese culture. There is also a lot of information about Yoga and meditation, that I didn’t know or understand. This book does not match my personal philosophy, but I can see how it would appeal to a lot of people.   

You may also enjoy this No Spoiler Book Review of The Book of Joy.

Share your thoughts on this book! Comment below:

I found this book after I decided to divide The Book of Joy into two readings. The Book of Joy is an interview between the Archbishop Tutu of South Africa and the Dalai Lama and how they think humans can find lasting happiness. The Archbishop talks a lot about Apartheid and South Africa, subjects that I know very little about. So, when I was scrolling Overdrive looking at available ebooks and I saw Born a Crime, I figured it was a happy coincidence and an opportunity for me to learn more about South African history.  

Each chapter of this book presents a prologue about South African history or Apartheid coupled with Trevor Noah’s experiences growing up there. A lot of the stories are about how his life was impacted by the laws and society at the time. This book definitely falls into the category of non-fiction that reads like fiction, I learned a lot about a culture that I knew very little about, in a way that kept me turning pages. I knew that Trevor Noah was from South Africa, but I always thought there was an asterisk there, like he moved to the US when he was three or was one of the “rich kids”. The truth is he graduated High School there and was so poor at one point he was living in a mechanic’s garage and sleeping in cars.

I used to think of Trevor Noah as a mischievous elf or trickster, he’s just so effing cute and funny, but I need to give him much more credit than that. The fact that he made it out of such a terrible situation and has always been able to see the humor in life, makes me respect him as a storyteller and social advocate. I know some people won’t read this because they don’t agree with his politics, but everyone could benefit from the cultural and historical knowledge provided in this book. 

You may also enjoy this No Spoiler Book Review of The Book of Joy.

Share your thoughts on this book. Comment below:

Austin Kleon just released Keep Going, which is getting a lot of attention and good reviews. Looking over his history, I noticed that Steal Like and Artist was hugely successful, so I decided to start there. I downloaded this book to my iPhone and was surprised to find that it is a teensy, tiny book a little over 100 pages. In addition to being barely long enough to actually get published, the book is mostly quotes, memes, illustrations and small paragraphs with lots of spacing. I read it in one day.

The title of this book is extremely accurate because the entire book is the author expanding on other people’s ideas. There is a quote by a famous, author, scientist, or musician on nearly ever page. Austin Kleon simply expands on each quote and explains how it relates to his creative process. This book is like if someone found all the inspirational creativity memes online and then lengthened them to be three or four sentences each.

I’m not saying this book isn’t helpful, it does have some good ideas and tips, but it doesn’t delve deeply into any subject. This book more skims the surface of creativity. Not bad if you are looking for a quick, easy read with an interesting format about the creative process. It certainly won’t be a waste of your time, as most people could probably read this in one sitting.  

Share your thoughts on this book. Comment below: 

I got recommended Harlan Coben back when Dan Brown was super popular. I was getting ready to go on vacation and one of the librarians I worked with recommended his books. I don’t remember what the title was, but I liked it and have read probably one Harlan Coben book per year since then, including his young adult novel, Shelter. The funny thing about this recommendation is that the same librarian that introduced me to Harlan Coben later accused me of being “an eighty-year-old man” because I liked him… Oh well, I still like his books!

I don’t read every book that Harlan Coben puts out and I try to stay away from his series. I do not have time for that… When I saw that he was publishing a book about the heroin epidemic, I put it on my to-read list right away. The heroin crisis is so prolific that I feel like just about everyone has been affected by it now. My husband and I were both brought up pretty poor, I had a good childhood, but my husband’s upbringing was rough. Many of the members of his family are still struggling. He and I have tried to set a positive example for his nieces and nephews by showing them what a nice middle-class life looks like. He has four nieces and nephews, one of his nieces was determined to go down and bad path, another one always made good decisions, they are now both addicted to heroin. I know that Run Away is fiction and is not going to solve any of the real-world problems, but it was nice to read about someone, getting out there and trying to save his daughter from this terrible drug.

Harlan Coben, is an easy author to recommend to most adults that are looking for a fun adventure novel. Run Away, is a quick read, like most of Harlan Coben’s books. For the most part, it was pretty predictable, I consider his books to be more adventure than mystery, but there was a great twist at the end that I did not see coming. If you do recommend his books to someone just note that they do tend to have a bit of gore and violence, so just make your patron aware of that before they check out his books.   

Share your thoughts on this book. Comment below: 

This is the final book of the Magician’s Trilogy, which I have savored over the course of the last few years. I listened to all of these books on audio, narrated by Mark Bramhall, he did a fantastic job with a difficult book to narrate. These books required the narrator to be able to convincingly do accents from all over the world and to speak as gods and monsters would speak. The Magician’s was my favorite book the year that I read it, and the following two books were every bit as great!

This book follows the story of a group of tortured genius magicians on their adventures in this world and others. The characters are seemingly always in personal crisis. They are profoundly self-absorbed and mostly alcoholics, so the books can get pretty dark at times. However, there are times of wonder, awe and selfless sacrifice that creates a good balance for the story. What I really loved about this series is that it is full of sneaky humor, there could be something very tense and tragic happening and somehow the author finds a way to slip in a funny line at the exact right moment. I look forward to Lev Grossman hopefully, writing more fantasy in the future.

A note on the TV series. I watched the first season of this show and then gave up on it. The writers of the show, changed a lot about the book for no reason that I could make sense of. I like the actor that plays Quentin, but I don’t agree with any of the other casting decisions. My biggest problem was with the actress who plays Julia, to be fair the character is so complex and important that I don’t think many actresses could pull off the part. The books generally set a very high bar, so any adaptations were likely to fall short.
​
Share your thoughts on this book! Comment below:  

When I say this book “wasn’t bad” that’s a raving review, Mystery is maybe 13th on my list of favorite genres. My problem with Mystery is that, I feel like the author asks you to suspend disbelief so hard that you might as well be reading Fantasy, which I much prefer. I read this book for a community book club that I recently joined, and even though it would not have been my first pick, it was fast paced, engaging and the book club members loved it.

The story revolves around three main questions, is the husband dead or alive, did he do what they said he did, and who else is “in on it”? I went back and forth as to whether the husband was alive, just like the author wanted me to, I would not have been surprised by either ending. There are actually two unsavory things that the husband was thought to have done, I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say, I had this figured out. The question of who else is involved in a mystery is always so convoluted that I just stick with suspecting everyone, right down to the trendy tattooed librarian, that way, I’m always right. The multi-layered questions in this mystery did succeed in making it a page turner and this title was absolutely enjoyed by the book club members.
 
If you are a fan of mystery or are selecting a novel for book club, this is a probably a great option for you. You may also enjoy this No Spoiler Book Review of Big Little Lies.
​
What is your favorite mystery? Comment below:

I downloaded this book on audio, I always like to be listening to something while I do the dishes or go to the gym. I literally laughed out loud, to myself, in public, like a crazy person, while I was listening to this book. The narrator of this book, really mastered Less’ “backwards laugh” and was great with all the accents and different character voices. 

On the surface this is a funny book that follows a man on his trip around the world as he tries to distract himself from his longtime casual boyfriend’s wedding. This book is full of sly jokes and hilarious, “lost-in-translation” stories. There are also much deeper philosophical elements crafted into the story that contemplate getting older, loss and love. What I really enjoyed about this book is that it reads like a collection of short comedies, each taking place in a new exotic location, where the main character is the victim of continual hilarious misadventures. This book is a fun, quick read that is subtly complex.

Readers looking for something light and funny, will be rewarded with this books phenomenal award winning writing. Anyone interested in adult LGBTQ literature will appreciate the depth and complexity of the characters. Readers of romance, comedy and literary fiction should consider this book. You may also enjoy this No Spoiler Review of A Man Called Ove.     
​
Share your thoughts on this book! Comment below:  

As I transitioned from eating out all the time to learning how to cook, there were early cookbooks that became the foundation for my healthy cooking philosophy. After unsuccessfully trying to be a lazy cook, I discovered cookbooks on the benefits of whole food diets, full of colorful and delicious meals. I sometimes wonder what my diet might be like today, if I had come across attractive and convincing books on cutting calories or Vegetarianism first. Instead my cooking journey can be defined by a failed attempt at laziness and a couple of fantastic whole foods cookbooks.

When I first started cooking, I looked for books that required minimum effort, like “One Pot” books. To this day I find this whole “One Pot” genre to be misleading and disappointing. I now understand that “One Pot” just means that the entire meal will be served in one pot, not that you cook everything in one-pot. Since I hate doing dishes, these “One Pot” meals that require three pots to cook make me want to deliver dirty dishes to the author’s doorstep. When you do actually find a one pot meal where everything actually cooks in one pot, the meal usually turns out brown, bland and mushy. Faced with the unsatisfactory reality of “One Pot” cookbooks, I moved on.
​
For the full article click the "Read More" button

I never really paid attention to this book when it was released, then I saw the movie preview and thought, I better read it before the movie comes out. In the preview I saw, it looks like the daughter goes missing forcing her eccentric parents to go on some sort of adventure scavenger hunt to find her. I either misunderstood, they were purposefully misleading or they really changed the movie, because the mother is the one who goes missing.

I almost gave up on this book twice. The first time was because the main characters are awful, they are intellectual snobs, who seemingly go out of their way to start petty wars with people in their community. Since, I had seen the preview and knew the parents were going to be drawn out of their isolation to find their daughter, I kept going, hoping everyone would be decent people at the end. Then the author started talking about the daughter, Bee’s, health problems. I literally stopped reading and looked up a book synopsis to make sure that the daughter doesn’t die. Sorry, I just don’t like sad books. After reading the summary, I felt pretty confident that they were not going to kill the daughter, so I kept reading.

Of course, the mom was awful for a good reason and everyone grew and changed by the end of the book. This is a fun page turner, with really great imagery of Antarctica, which I now need to visit. Can’t wait for the movie!   
​
Share your thoughts on this book! Comment below!

I avoided reading this book because it was so popular, I felt like it couldn’t be trusted. Everyone was saying how good it was, but the cover made it look so frivolous and it just sounded unoriginal. I was completely not interested in this book. Then it was recommended to me by someone who I just met, but really liked, and I thought, I better read it in case I ever see this person again. So, I read it, and of course I loved it!

This is one of those odd books that is impossible to summarize and actually make it sound good, it’s about bullying and domestic violence, but you know, funny? Books like this, make these difficult topics more accessible and easier for people to talk about. This is a fun, easy, entertaining book that is also an important book.

You may also enjoy this No Spoiler Book Review of Marriage Lie.

Share your thoughts on this book! Comment below!

This Young Adult book has been out for a few years, I wasn’t interested in it when it was published, even though it was pretty popular at the time. I ended up adding it to my list out of misguided curiosity. It was mentioned as the book you should read after finishing Harry Potter, in a book I didn’t like, but finished for a friend. I knew I shouldn’t take the advice of an author I didn’t care for, but I read it anyway and was very annoyed when I got to the end of the book. I don’t know why I was expecting anything different…

The premise is interesting enough, a civilization of humans living on a distant planet, where all men can hear each other’s thoughts. ALL OF THEM. ALL THE TIME. Things are bleak and dark, the planet is beautiful, but hard and the men are evil, conniving and murderous. This book is basically a 500-page chase scene with a boy and girl character being chased across a planet by an evil army. The writing is very drawn out and repetitive and the book ends pretty much mid-sentence. I understand the idea of a cliff hanger, but in this case, I felt like I was being held hostage by the story.

I hate giving negative reviews, and I typically just wont finish a book I don’t like. My Goodreads.com account is all books rated three stars or higher, because I don’t finish books, I would rate two stars or below. I would have rated this book three stars, most of it is fine and it is creative, but the complete lack of an ending made me so mad, I’m rating it two stars!
​
Share your thoughts on this book. Comment below!

​My goal is to read at least one book per library check-out period. I usually check-out my books from Overdrive, so my download period is two weeks, that has me reading at least 26 books per year. I don’t stick to a particular genre; I usually look for whatever book on my list is the most different from what I have just finished. So, if I just finished a non-fiction on current social issues, I might follow that up with a funny satirical memoir. My reading list tends to look like a random selection of popular books from the last ten years with the occasional classic mixed in. I will try not to include spoilers. Please join in the conversation!

​This was recommended to me by my amazingly talented and insanely smart hair dresser, or as I call her, my “hair boss”. The premise of this book is so bizarre, that I was instantly intrigued. Apparently, there is a worldwide community of Fly-tiers, that obsessively make salmon fly ties using the feathers of rare, protected and endangered birds. This is the story of how one of those fly-tiers broke into the Tring Museum of Natural History and stole irreplaceable bird skins to sell and support his hobby. This is a very strange tale and it is all true!

Favorite line from this book:

(This is part of the Tring Museum’s history) Lucky visitors caught glimpses of Rothschild astride Rotumah, the 150-year-old Galapagos tortoise he’d sprung loose from an insane asylum in Australia.
​
Yep, that happened…

Share your thoughts on this book. Comment below!