Category Archives: Books

I’m doing my best to finish at least 1 of the 3 books I’m reading right now and I’ll hopefully have a book review up here by the end of next week. No promises though. In the meantime, here is a new weekly post made-up entirely of interesting links found around the Internet this past week. =) Enjoy your weekend! 

Writing News

• How Do You Write About Life When It’s Lived on Computers? @ The Guardian
• Let’s Talk Covers: From a child’s perspective @ Reading Angels – in which a 4 year old describes the plot of a book based on the cover. So sweet.

Misc Book Love

• Neat bookbags! @Harper Collins – I want all of these…
• Restyling the Classics @ The Atlantic Wire
• The Open Book @ NY Times Books – Beautiful wordless comic strip. I’d love to frame a print in my baby’s room.
• Awesome bookish staircases @ Book Riot

Book Awards

• Children’s Choice Book Award Winners! Congrats Jeff Kinney. @ School Library Journal

Library News

• Overdrive Unveils Big Library Read Pilot Project @ GoodEReader – Starts May 15th!
• 50+ Great Adventure Chapter Books for Girls @JennyEvolution – A great reader’s advisory / booklist resource for librarians

Book Blogger News

• Book Publicity: What’s Changed and What Hasn’t @ Digital Book World – As relevant to book bloggers and how PR agents can approach us with review offers.

Share the love of reading

• Help a child read. Here are 5 easy ways to get started @ Scholastic – Very easy tricks to implement at home with your own kids!
• The 21st Century Skill Most Students Lack @Washington Post – How being bored can be a good skill to have “Students today have so many options that being mildly bored can be successfully avoided most of the time.”
• Start With A Book – A great resource for librarians supporting teachers and parents who support literacy and reading skills. Resources include: 24 Learning themes, Reading Aloud tips, Fluency skills and other literacy resources.

The Time of My Life by Cecila Ahern

Find this book at your local library

Lucy Silchester’s life is in a rut. She lives in hovel of a studio apartment, doesn’t get along with her parents and sits broken-hearted over her lost love. All the while, she’s living in a giant nest of lies she conducted post break-up, and can’t figure out a way to untangle the mess she’s made. After a series of attempts, Lucy finally responds on a message that she receives and returns a call to her life, who happens to by male. Soon, Lucy’s life shows up at her apartment, follows her to work, to her parent’s and becomes the source of change that she’s been needing to get her life back on track.

I’m a huge fan of Cecila Ahern, so image how stoked I was to win a copy of her newest title. Sadly, although I did enjoy the book, it’s really not her best work. The entire concept of a life audit, and the person’s life being an actual person that you have to deal with is an interesting one. The main downfall is that the characters and their personalities weren’t very original, and it has a very chick-lit ending which was OK, but nothing stellar. The book was also fairly predictable. Although the concept was interesting and new, not much else in the book was very original. The moral of the story relied on too many clichés; be true to yourself, don’t judge a book by its cover, you have to be happy with your life to be happy with anyone else, etc.

For the most part, Lucy is really annoying for the majority of the book, almost rivaling Tamara Goodwin from The Book of Tomorrows. I would have liked to learn more about her family though. There were a few plot twists, but some of the twists felt forced rather than naturally occurring. If I really had to pinpoint it to anything, it was the dialogue between Lucy and her friends. It felt too…scripted. Everything felt very by the book and formulaic. Ahern has done a fantastic job with magical realism in the past, but this one could have used a few more revisions and more depth of personality in all the characters. It’s still a decent read, don’t get me wrong. There are humorous moments. I, for one, have a small crush on Lucy’s life.

Congratulations Katie! Please respond to my e-mail by next week so that we can get you a copy of the book. 

Union Street Bakery by Mary Ellen Taylor

After having lost her dream finance job in Washington DC, Daisy McCrae moves back to Virginia, and re-enters her old life. She’s living with her parents and helping her two sisters take care of the bakery that’s been in their family for generations. Upon coming back to the small town of Alexandria, Daisy is haunted by ghosts of the past, literally and figuratively. When she was 3, she was abandoned in the bakery by her birth mother and was adopted by the bakery owners, the McCrae’s.

Still licking her wounds from losing her job and lifestyle in DC, Daisy receives a 150 year old journal from Mabel Woodrow, the oldest woman in town, shortly after Mabel passes away. Now, as Daisy tries to make sense of her life, and the life of Susie the slave girl who wrote the journal, she discovers that the past isn’t meant to be forgotten, it sticks around and forces you to look ahead into your future.

Although it falls into the category of chick-lit quite easily, there is a bit more substance to this book. I loved the way she wove history and modern times together, syncing the two storylines together. Although it was a tad predictable, it was still an enjoyable read. The mention of the baked goods helped keep my interest in the book, as do the recipes in the back. There were a few issues with continuity, but since I read and ARC copy, I’m sure those issues have been edited since the final printing.

My only other complaint is that I wish the author had expanded or better incorporated the ghosts of the past more. I could see where she was going with them, and I thought it would make this book much more gothic and eerie, but I don’t think that was the author’s tone. Instead, the ghosts seemed listless an didn’t really serve a purpose. Plus, I didn’t understand Daisy’s reaction to them, at all. It seemed to easy-going.

Overall, this is a really fun read, one that’ll have you pulling out your mixing bowl and baking supplies from the pantry. One that’ll make you want to research your family tree and learn about your past. It’s a book that you have a chance to win if you enter my giveaway! Click here to enter.  The giveaway runs until the 14th, so you still have plenty time to enter.

From my previous reviews, we know I have an affection for books about food, primarily books about bake shops. Well, since I haven’t held one of these contests in years, I thought “what better way to start off Spring than with something as sweet as a book about family, baking and sweets?

Just fill out this form by April 14th for your chance to win a copy of Mary Ellen Taylor’s Union Street Bakery. This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only. Only 1 entry per person, and please spread the word!

To entice you further…here are a few of the goodies from the book:

 Carrot Cake

 Espresso Tort (Yum!)

Book Synopsis
Mary Ellen Taylor’s passions include writing, baking and family, all of which intertwine in THE UNION STREET BAKERY, a Berkley Trade Paperback Original on sale February 5th, 2013. In it, Taylor introduces Daisy McCrae, who’s returned to Alexandria’s Old Town after losing her boyfriend, her job and most of her money, and is once again living above her family’s bakery and ignoring the whispers of an amiable spirit who shares the attic rooms.

With her parents no longer able to run the bakery, Daisy’s doing her best to keep the 160-year-old family business afloat and to manage her less than perfect relationships with her sisters. Rachel, widowed thirteen months ago, lives in the shop’s second floor apartment with her five-year-old twin girls. She’s been shouldering the load since their father’s heart attack and reluctant retirement. An extraordinary baker, she has no head for business. Their sister Margaret and her almost-Ph.D. in archaeology have returned to the store as well, though with a definite lack of punctuality and enthusiasm.

In THE UNION STREET BAKERY Mary Ellen Taylor brings together history, contemporary concerns and the stuff of legends as she explores how family relationships, loyalties, and love shape the present, and the role the past plays in determining the future.