Mimi

This was just fun to listen to. Not even sure I've seen Rob Lowe in much of anything except Austin Powers or the tv show Parks and Rec, but his book is actually quite interesting, and he reads it well.

Listened to this driving back across the country. The writing style is a little melodramatic (a lot is accomplished through “the sheer force of her will!”), but the story snuck up on me and Tim Curry is an awesome narrator. Good enough that we went right into Lirael (The Abhorsen Trilogy, #2), and now I have to read #3 to find out what happens next.

Read this every time I do a cross-country road trip. First time was in 1985.

One of the rare books that Nigel and I both really liked. He likes sci-fi and I like crime novels, and this was both. We listened to it as we drove across the country and thought the narrator was excellent, too.

This came across in my library's e-reader service and looked interesting. But now the only things I remember are that you shouldn't make decisions while hungry, and, at the same time, you shouldn't leave big bowls of M&M's lying around. I did enjoy reading about various celebrities like Drew Carey. However, I was a little disappointed that the focus was not on how he became healthy, but rather on how he conquered his disorganized email and office clutter problem. He did this by hiring David Allen himself, the Getting Things Done guru, to come once a year and organize for him. Which, now that I think about it, doesn't really say much about Drew Carey's willpower...

Wavered between 4 or 5 stars. Not a perfect book, but it has so many interesting layers and events that turn to out to be connected: suicide, Buddhism, the dot-com bubble burst, the 2011 tsunami, WWII, a diary that triggers it all off (still not sure how the diary traveled from Japan to the PNW, but just went with it). This book was suggested for the “Read a book wherein all point-of-view characters are people of color” category, and seems suitable as the two main POV characters are Japanese.

Read this Detroit-based detective/mystery novel for the category “Read a book that is set within 100 miles of your location.” It was so good it made me happy. I might say it's even better than Jack Reacher novels, it was that good. It was a debut novel–hope there are more coming.

I liked this so much! It was darker than I expected from reviews–and that's a good thing. Excellent debut novel. I also just read that the author wrote it while working a full-time job. Perhaps that how she captured office culture so accurately. I was genuinely concerned about Eleanor being able to come up with a good idea for the office holiday party...

Published by Instant Future, an eBook imprint from Future Tense Books, thus fulfilling the “Read a book published by a micropress” category of the Read Harder Challenge. Bonus: I liked this sharp little book very much.

Airplane read.

Fast and to the point, with as much detail about Steve Jobs as I really want to know. Takes care of my Read a Book about Technology category for the Read Harder Challenge.

Read this years ago, still great on re-reading.

First book I've read in a long time that kept me up way past my bedtime. Just couldn't stop reading those quirky little diary entries.

Had potential, but despite the quirky characters and unusual plot, it dragged after a while. Fulfills my Read Harder Challenge category of a debut novel.

I jumped from #2 in the series to #18. It doesn't seem to matter in terms of continuity or characters. But these are fun to read in between other books.

Think I will slot this one into the “Read a Travel Memoir” category for the 2017 Read Harder Challenge, although it's a travel memoir wrapped around the story of one of the last great British explorers, Percy Fawcett. The author attempts to discover the fate of Fawcett, who was obsessed with finding the Lost City of Z (or, El Dorado) and disappeared while doing so. Good riddance to the age of the great white explorer, I say, since invariably these obsessions wrecked families, triggered ecological disasters, and decimated native populations.

For the Read Harder Challenge 2017: Read a collection of stories by a woman. I am not usually a fan of short stories, but this was quirky, moving, and full of interesting twists.

Like her on Instagram; like her book!

I read this for the 2017 Read Harder Challenge: Read a Classic by an author of color. And I was reminded, of course, that classics are classic for a reason. This is a moving book, a pleasure to read, and I will probably read it again, just like I revisit Lolita every year or so. This review from the New Yorker is also worth reading.

For the 2017 Read Harder Challenge: Read an LGBTQ+ romance novel.

A book of poetry in translation (in this case, Korean), not about love, for the Read Harder Challenge. I wanted to read something edgy. This definitely was. “When I take a walk on the bridge with my dead cat in my arms, people say strange things to me.”

Reread for the Read Harder 2017 Challenge.

Just re-read and got all teared up at the end. When I first read this book in elementary school, I loved the details of how they survived on their own. Now I wonder why their grandfather had never seen them before. What happened in this family?!

Also, this was originally published in 1942, so counts as “a book published between 1900 and 1950” for the Read Harder Challenge.

Five stars because it's an intelligent read and because I miss this classy woman and her family so much. To quote one of the contributors, the chef Marcus Samuelsson, “Michelle Obama is fierce... in the smartest, most intelligent way.”

Made me angry, as I knew it would. Tough to read, but important to know.