I am a certified bookaholic and am embracing my addiction. Here you will find my short book reviews and other wonderful information all about books. I will also share my love for animals and show you some of my knitting projects.
This is a guest review by my husband Bill. Welcome Bill!
In an age when middle and working class living standards have been stressed throughout the advanced economies, The Spirit Level (Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better)is a timely contribution to the discussion of why we are living in increasingly unequal societies, and the consequences of the policy choices that brought it about.
Written by British academics Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Sprit Level examines the levels of income inequality among the advanced industrial economies (and between states in the US) and how they relate to various social pathologies such as life expectancy, crime and violence, academic achievement, obesity, drug use, and incarceration rates. Along all these measures, there is a strong relationship between inequality and the prevalence of these problems. Even on measures of social mobility, highly unequal societies such as the US and UK fare worse than more equalitarian countries, even though increased social mobility is often cited as a justification for inequality.
The authors show how policies embraced during the last 30 years emphasizing lower tax rates for the wealthiest and widespread deregulation have vastly increased inequality and its attendant problems. Their solutions do not necessarily mean higher levels of taxation and government intervention, as some countries (such as Japan) have achieved more equal societies with relatively little intervention by the state.
Wilkinson and Pickett's thesis is backed by impressive amounts of academic research, though it is written in a style that is quite accessible to the average reader. People can argue back and forth about whether highly unequal levels of income are fair or not, but there is little doubt around the negative consequences for the vast majority of citizens in those countries. This book is highly recommended to educate people to be better informed about economic choices facing their political leaders, and what can be expected as a result.
Back in July, 2009 I won a copy of 'The Model Millionaire' by Oscar Wilde from Jessica over at The Blue Stocking Society. It's a collection of short stories. I know it been awhile since I won it but I finally cracked it open and read the first story.
The Sphinx Without a Secret is a very short story, all of seven pages. It opens at a outdoor cafe in Paris.
Lord Murchison was walking by and saw an un-named friend sitting at a table and joined him. He told his friend a strange story about a woman he had intended to marry.
She was very secretive about where she went so, one day Lord Murchison followed her. To his disbelief, he followed her to a boarding house Of course, Lord Murchison assumed she had a another lover and confronted her. She confessed that she rented a room at the boarding house but denied that she was meeting another man there. Lord Murchison didn't believe her and broke off their engagement. He later finds out...
I enjoyed this story. It was a sedate little piece but was well written and quite clever. You can read it on the web,here.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the tragedy of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story review. Come join in the fun! Tweet
Thanks to Anna Balasi of Hachette Book Group, I am giving away up to 3 copies of this book.
Book Description:
Tristan, the Duke of Shelbourne is a man with a mission: find a wife he can tolerate as long as they both shall live. Love is not necessary--nor desired. But how to choose among a dizzying array of wealthy-yet-witless candidates? Hire London's infamously prim and proper matchmaker. Then pretend she's not the most captivating woman he's ever met...
Helping a devilish Duke create a contest to pick his perfect mate is the kind of challenge Tessa Mansfield relishes. Her methods may be scandalous, but she's determined to find the notorious bachelor more than a wife--she'll bring him true love. Yet when Tessa watches the women vie for the Duke's affections, she longs to win his heart herself. And after a stolen kiss confirms Tristan's desire, Tessa knows she has broken a matchmaker's number one rule: never fall in love with the groom.
The number of entrants to this giveaway will determine how many copies of this book I will giveaway:
1-10 entrants= 1
11-20 entrants= 2
21 or more entrants= 3
To Enter:
Leave a comment with your email address, so I can contact you if you win.
Extra Entries: (please leave a separate comment for each, for instance you you are a follower, leave 3 comments that you are a follower).
+3 "Like" the post about this giveaway on Facebook
+3 Be my friend on Goodreads (Teddy).
+3 for Joining my Books Won Reading Challenge (be sure to follow the rules and then let me know you joined here.)
+1 for each comment on a book review I have done. (Be sure to tell me which ones).
+1 for clicking to give free food at The Animal Rescue Site (tell me you did it).( Up to 1 time per day)
+1 for clicking to give free books at The Literacy Site (tell me you did it). ( Up to 1 time per day)
That's 21 or more possible entries!
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only. The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O.Boxes. Only one entry per household/IP address
Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the book.
This giveaway will end on Friday, February 4th,11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email. Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified.
To follow the tour, here are the tour blogs and schedule:
I had never heard of Katherine Mansfield until JoAnn ofLakeside Musings reviewed her short story,The Doll's House. I am always on the lookout for new to me classic authors, so I couldn't resist checking this story out for myself.
It opens with the Burnells' receiving the gift of a Doll House for the children from Mrs. Hay.
We learn a lot about the doll house and of all the things in it.
"the smell of paint coming from that doll's house ("Sweet of old Mrs. Hay, of course; most sweet and generous!") -- but the smell of paint was quite enough to make any one seriously ill, in Aunt Beryl's opinion. Even before the sacking was taken off."
"There stood the doll's house, a dark, oily, spinach green, picked out with bright yellow."
There is also furniture and a lamp in the doll house.
"The father and mother dolls, who sprawled very stiff as though they had fainted in the drawing-room, and their two little children asleep upstairs, were really too big for the doll's house. They didn't look as though they belonged. But the lamp was perfect. It seemed to smile to Kezia, to say, "I live here." The lamp was real."
The children were thrilled with the gift and could hardly wait to tell their friends all about it.
"I'm to tell," said Isabel, "because I'm the eldest. And you two can join in after. But I'm to tell first." "And I'm to choose who's to come and see it first. Mother said I might."
Two by two the other children at school were invited to go home with the Burnell children to see the doll house. However, the Kelvey children were not invited. Kezia wanted to invite them but her mother said, "certainly not."
"They were the daughters of a spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day. This was awful enough. But where was Mr. Kelvey? Nobody knew for certain."
The children accept the social hierarchy of their parents without question. They know they are not to talk with the Kelveys' and they don't. Except for Kezia. The Kelyveys' don't seem to belong to the community, just like the dolls don't seem to belong in the doll house.
This is a gem of a short story. At just about 9 pages, Katherine Mansdfield makes the story of a doll house a social commentary of caste. This would make for an excellent book club discussion. You can read the story, here.
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story review. Come join in the fun!
Thanks to Anna Balasi of Hachette Book Group, I am giving away up to 3 copies of this book.
Book Description:
The first book in the Highland Warriors trilogy, in which three heroes make a pact to insure that a rival clan does not take over their Glen of Many Legends. At the same time, three women plot to marry these heroes to insure peace.
In SINS OF A HIGHLAND DEVIL, James Cameron is concerned when the King's decree states all three neighboring clans must have a battle to the death in order to lay official claim to the scared Glen of Many Legends. James attempts to make a pact with the heads of the other clans to fight this decree. But he ends up fighting his own fierce desire when coming head-to-head with Lady Catriona of the opposing MacDonald clan, who has her own plan for peace.
The number of entrants to this giveaway will determine how many copies of this book I will giveaway:
1-10 entrants= 1
11-20 entrants= 2
21 or more entrants= 3
To Enter:
Leave a comment with your email address, so I can contact you if you win.
Extra Entries: (please leave a separate comment for each, for instance you you are a follower, leave 3 comments that you are a follower).
+3 "Like" the post about this giveaway on Facebook
+3 Be my friend on Goodreads (Teddy).
+3 for Joining my Books Won Reading Challenge (be sure to follow the rules and then let me know you joined here.)
+1 for each comment on a book review I have done. (Be sure to tell me which ones).
+1 for clicking to give free food at The Animal Rescue Site (tell me you did it).( Up to 1 time per day)
+1 for clicking to give free books at The Literacy Site (tell me you did it). ( Up to 1 time per day)
That's 21 or more possible entries!
Sorry, the giveaway is only open US and Canadian residents only. The winner’s mailing address: NO P.O.Boxes. Only one entry per household/IP address
Winners will be subject to the one copy per household rule, which means that if you win the same title in two or more contests, you will receive only one copy of the book.
This giveaway will end on Friday, January 28th,11:59 P.M. E.S.T. The winners will be notified by email. Winners must respond within TWO days or will be disqualified.
To follow the tour, here are the tour blogs and schedule:
In February 1895 the wife of a Texas landowner, Vadav Skala , died while giving birth to their son, Karl. Though Karl never knew his mother, he was haunted by thought of her throughout his life.
Karl had three older brothers who helped to raise him. Their father Vadav worked all of his sons hard. He had wonderful horses that he pampered but it was the 4 brothers were the ones that pulled the plow in the fields, with their father cracking the whip. In fact, Karl's neck leaned to the left his entire life because of this.
Karl excelled in riding horses and his father made land bets against his neighbours with Karl riding. Karl always won and was reward by not getting a beating. One day a wealthy Mexican man, makes a horse race bet with Vadav. His daughter against Karl. The outcome was for much more than land and would ultimately break the Skala apart.
Bruce Machart has been compared to William Faulkner and I can see the resemblance. He captures the desolate landscape and greyness of the story quite like Faulkner would. Here's and example of his writing:
"He’d known land in his life that, before a few seasons of regular rainfall, had been hard enough to crack a plow point, and he knew that if, by stubbornness or circumstance, that earth became yours to farm, you’d do well to live with the constant understanding that, in time, absent the work of swollen clouds and providence, your boots would fall loudly, giving rise to dust, when you walked your fields."
This is ultimately the story of the bond of family, forgiveness, and redemption. It has sparse dialogue and lots of narrative. I would have like more dialogue to break up the long narrative more.
This is a book that is not to be rushed. It must be treated like a fine wine and savoured for both the prose and the story. It took me awhile to appreciate this story and see it's merit. I must have read a good 100 pages before I decided if I was going to finish it or not. However, I am glad I stuck with it. There many pearls to be discovered in the prose. Machart is an author to watch!
Bruce Machart is the author of the novel, The Wake of Forgiveness, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in October of 2010, and a forthcoming collection of short stories entitled Men in the Making, due out from HMH in 2011. His fiction has been published in some of the country's finest literary magazines, including Zoetrope: All-Story, Story, One Story, Five Points, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. His short stories have been anthologized in Best Stories of the American West and Descant: Fifty Years. The winner of numerous awards and fellowships, Bruce is a graduate of the MFA program at The Ohio State University.
I have never read anything by Laura Lippman before this. In fact, I wrote her off as one of "those authors". You know, the formulaic, blockbuster, fluff, author. She may be that as I can't judge from one short story but I did enjoy 'The Babysitter's Code.'
Terri Snyder is a very "in demand" babysitter and she knows all of the written and unwritten rules of babysitting. Never open any unopened food, never eat the last of something, and never show your gluttony.
"Once when she was at the Morrows’ house, she discovered a four-pound can of pistachio nuts and got a little carried away. And while the canister was so large that it provided cover for her gluttony, the shells in the trash can left no doubt as to how much she had eaten. To conceal the grossness of her appetite, she packed those shells in her knapsack and the pockets of her ski jacket. Riding home in the front seat of Ed Morrow’s Jeep Cherokee, she realized she was rattling softly, but Mr. Morrow seemed to think it was the car’s heater. The next time she babysat for the Morrows, she found another canister of pistachios, a sure sign of trust."
Terry felt it was also okay to snoop as long as she put everything back exactly as it was. She never found anything shocking, until one day while in Mrs. Morrow's lingerie drawer.
The tension in this story works really well as does the plot. It may be a bit of a fluff piece or as I like to say, palate cleanser, but I really enjoyed it. You can read it at Fifty-Two Stories, here.
If you would like to participate in Short Story Mondays, go to John of The Book Mine Set. He has a short story review every Monday and a place for you to link your short story review. Come join in the fun!
I'm Leaving very early tomorrow, Saturday. Hubby and I are off to see my dear BIL in California. Were driving, so we can stop at all of our favorite spots along the way. Our first stop is a Powell's Book store in Portland, Oregon. I'll be sometime on Sunday, January 16th. I will have limited internet / computer use while I'm away.
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