If you like smart, dark fiction, race out and get “The Interloper” by Antoine Wilson immediately. A man struggles to deal with his wife’s sorrow after her brother is brutally murdered.
The book tells the story of his imaginative attempt to seek revenge upon the jailed killer, a quixotic attempt to restore his wife’s happiness which [...]

From time to time Harper Collins sends me books to review, and about a month or so ago the book Damage Control: Women on the Therapists, Beauticians, and Trainers Who Navigate Their Bodies, edited by Emma Forrest, arrived in my mailbox.
I have no earthly idea why they sent this book, other than the timing was [...]

Jane Yolen and Mark Teague are back with the latest in the “How Do Dinosaurs….” series that includes How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? and How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms?.
My dino-crazy 6 year old boy loves this series, and the school book fair gave me a great opportunity to buy him the newest book [...]

Any parent will tell you what a pain in the neck (and lower) it can be to read the same children’s books over and over and over again.
I fully recognize that kids learn through repetition, but after reading Goodnight Moon and Guess How Much I Love You and The Very Hungry Caterpillar eleventy million times, [...]

I had ordered a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from Amazon.com, but then decided I couldn’t possibly wait four days after release to read it, so I went out to my local Borders and grabbed a copy. I dug in right away, and then life interfered, and it took forever for me [...]

Wendy McClure is best known as a contributor to the ever-feisty “Television Without Pity” website, as well as her own blog at poundy.com She wrangled a book deal from her blog, and the result is I’m Not the New Me, a memoir of her struggle to lose weight.
For the first half of this [...]

For me the mark of a great author is someone makes me want to go out and read everything they’ve ever written, and I’ve been doing that with Janet Evanovich’s books for years.
Books in her “Stephanie Plum” series make me literally laugh out loud at least three times per book. So anytime a new book [...]

The Good Night Our World series of board books is a great idea in principle: a series of books that introduces little people to various places in our world.
Each book proceeds from “Good Morning” to “Good Night” and visits the city or place the book is about through all four seasons. There are more than [...]

I’ll admit it. I absolutely LOVE books. In fact, I’m a bit nutty about them. I’ve been reading since I was four, and it is not unusual for me to have three or four (or more!) selections going at a time. I can spend HOURS at a time in the library or my local Barnes [...]

With four kids under eight, I’m always on the lookout for good bedtime stories that hold the interest of all my kids, and I try to have a lot of them, because like all parents of preschoolers I get sick of reading the same books over and over and over again. Gossie and Gossie [...]

Sharp Objects, just released in paperback, is the story of a Chicago reporter sent back to her hometown in Mississippi to cover the disappearances of two little girls. Because her editor is too cheap to spring for hotels, our heroine must stay with her fascinatingly flawed family.
Stephen King says he was unable [...]

I tend to gravitate toward award winning books (well, okay, let’s be honest, I will read anything I can get my hands on: cereal boxes, shampoo bottles).
So when I saw that Rules, by Cynthia Lord, earned the Newberry Award, I happily added it to my Amazon cart to reach $25 so I could have free [...]

This handsome hard-covered children’s book caught my eye in the store, as my own four year-old daughter dearly loves to be fancy.
The cover blurbs celebrated the creation of a fabulous little heroine with a breathtaking sense of style… but when I actually read the book, I tossed it aside in disgust. In the end, Fancy [...]

Do you read Melanie Lynne Hauser’s blog, the Refrigerator Door? If not, shame on you! Melanie is hilarious and her writing is just so…. perfect. She writes about her husband Duh, and her two teenage sons, and a lot about their blocked toilets. She also writes books. Two of them so far. And today is [...]

So begins Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth, which is currently our favorite children’s book. It tells the story of Stillwater, a giant panda who suddenly shows up in the backyard of Michael, Addy, and Karl and is quickly befriended by the them.
First, Addy goes to tea with Stillwater; then Michael goes over to [...]