I didn’t join Goodreads. Mostly because until recently I didn’t know what it was or what I would want to join for. Many authors and friends had suggested via facebook I should join, and that only made me less likely to do so, because I assumed it was another facebook game or oddity. When I finally realized it consisted of normal people, well, as normal as any one who would join something called Goodreads–meaning lovers of the written word–are, the grassroots group sold out to the man, as the kids in my youth would say. They sold their original nice friendly swapping of what members enjoyed and didn’t like to the Robber Baron devil of Amazon. On the Goodreads home page, the list owners describe
Good Reads Archive
The Glass Room Edwin Rolfe and Lester Fuller 1946 “In 1946 the phrase first appeared in the murder mystery novel Murder in the Glass Room (by Edwin Rolfe and Lester Fuller) as “you can never tell a book by its cover.” Wow, that fact, I just found, may tip the book onto the list! We’ll see. Whenever I’d pass a particular spot on one of the myriads of bookcases, I’d see the spine of The Glass Room and remember that I had really liked it. Finally, after thinking about it again and again, I decided to reread. I thought maybe I was leaving out a book that should have made the Best 100 list, if I kept thinking how great it was. So I did–reread
We have a new contributor at The Bookshop Blog, something just for the guys. Here’s some info: ManBookRead is a men’s book club that was established to unite men around America (and beyond) under one interesting, quality, and genuinely awesome book each month. If it helps to use an example, think of Oprah’s Book Club and then take that thought, rip it up, and throw it in the trash. Then incinerate the trash. ManBookRead Nation is a community of men who: 1. Enjoy reading or want to get back into reading. 2. Want an easy way to find an awesome book that interests them each month 3. Are interested in possibly discussing the book online or with friends over a few beers. March Book
by Carrie Bailey While writing my thesis earlier this year, I was so eager to leave grad school behind me, like it was a candy wrapper and I was late to catch a train, that I hardly had time to process the controversial nature of the material I was studying. I wasn’t reading steampunk. Maybe I should have been, but I’ll get to that later. I was compiling an annotated bibliography of publications from New Zealand with content regarding its Jewish citizens. It expected to find offensive material and I was not disappointed. The first mention of the Jewish settlers I found was from the 1820s and in total I dug up about 200works of literature, histories and academic studies has been published on Jewish settlers
The Spider Orchid–Celia Fremlin–1977 –Used. I admit I originally had this on my Best 100 Mysteries of All Time list. I remember loving Ms. Fremlin, and thought this title was the best of what I read. But upon rereading this and another, I found I favored the other much more, so have switched this from a definite, to an alternate. Thus this title will be the first to succumb to my new policy of a live list–meaning if I find something more dazzling than what I already have written as the best, I will change the list to reflect that. I don’t think that will often happen, but in this case it did. Ms. Fremlin has the ability to take common ordinary situations and smother