Screenshot: A Weblog

I was asked the other day why I no longer write reviews of the books that I list as "recently reading" in my sidebar. The answer is two-fold - one, I started reading books faster than I could review them and I had fallen into a compulsion to only review books in the order I read them, and two, I've never upgraded the section of my site where I store book reviews, and it's a bit of a hassle to post them there because it is all hand coded.

But, I want to start reviewing books again. And so I've told myself I will review the books I read in 2007, starting with a nice clean slate. I've also decided, in the interest of actually making this happen, to not worry about updating the "reviews" portion of my site until the summer - I'm adding a "Reviews" category to my weblog and that can be used to find my current reviews on the off chance someone is interested.

So, without further ado....

Continue reading "Writing about books again" »

Posted by Amanda at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the further adventures of catching up on book reviews, I give you my review of The Final Solution by Michael Chabon, reproduced below for your convenience.

Continue reading "The Final Soution Review" »

Posted by Amanda at 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past few years I have entirely neglected the book review section of this site, and the truth is that I have hardly had time to read in the past year until a couple of weeks ago, but I'm going to make an effort to revive the site, beginning with a lengthy Attributing Authorship by Harold Love, reproduced below for your convenience.

Continue reading "Attributing Authorship Review" »

Posted by Amanda at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been really bad about writing book reviews the past year, but I did bother to do my annual list and mini-review of the books I read in 2003. My list of favorites from the past year was: Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt, Can't Buy My Love by Jean Kilbourne, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling, The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie, and The Big U by Neal Stephenson.

Posted by Amanda at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I make myself write a sentence or two about every book I read, for my own future reference, but isn't the internet all about sharing odd lists with the world? I've finally compiled and formatted my ratings and comments on the books I read in 2002. Essential stats: I read 52 books total, with a rating distribution of 36 '+'s, 14 '0's and 2 '-'s, and my favorite books of the year were England, England by Julian Barnes, Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress, Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, The Code Book by Simon Singh, and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.

Posted by Amanda at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Two more book reviews are up on my review site. The first is for Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken, a retelling of the events of Emma by Jane Austen, from the perspective of the "other" heroine, Jane Fairfax. It was very fun, and I would definitely recommend it to Austen fans. The other is for A Century of Science Fiction, 1950-1959 edited by Robert Silverberg, a collection of science fiction short stories from, you guessed it, the 1950's. It's a pretty good collection - the review has short comments on all of the stories.

Posted by Amanda at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Catching up for lost time I've got another book review posted, this one for the very good Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress.

Posted by Amanda at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been doing more off-line than on-line reading recently, which gets you little weblog content, but I do have a couple of new book reviews posted for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark and Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland, both of which I rated '+', though Miss Jean Brodie is the better book by far. I haven't gotten reviews up for them yet, but I've also recently read Nancy Kress's Beggers in Spain which I thought was very good, Michael Cunningham's The Hours which is interesting if you've read Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (and remember it) but I imagine is somewhat shallow otherwise, and a bunch of mystery novels by Laurie King and Sue Grafton, which were fun hot-summer-weekend recreation. The book-in-progress on the history of tort law is very interesting and I'll hopefully finish it up this weekend and write up a review.

Posted by Amanda at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)