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Reading, reading, reading! | Book Club Mom
I mentioned yesterday that I've been reading a lot. In fact, I read a monster book that I haven't review yet. And right now, I'm reading two books at the same time. The first one is another monster book and I had to put it on hold so I could read my Whodunits mystery book…
Blogging update: what’s new with me? | Book Club Mom
Hi Everyone, As always, I'm juggling blogging with work and life and lately, I never seem to have enough time to do it all! But I'm still plodding along. I miss being on the blog and visiting everyone every day. I'm trying to move back to that so I hope you'll be patient with me.…
Book Review: Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown | Book Club Mom
Society of LiesbyLauren Ling Brown ★★★ My new book club’s selection for next month is Society of Lies, Lauren Ling Brown’s debut mystery/thriller set on the campus of Princeton University. The story focuses on two sisters, Maya and Naomi. Maya, ten years older, has returned for both her reunion and Naomi’s graduation. What should have…
Book Review: The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor | Book Club Mom
The Fiction WriterbyJillian Cantor ★★★ I picked this thriller on a whim because I liked the cover, the classic mansion on top of a cliff. How could I resist? I love stories with settings like this. In this case, the mansion is a modern one in Malibu and the story is a multi-layered retelling of…
Book Review: The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware | Book Club Mom
The Turn of the KeybyRuth Ware If you’re looking for a good scary read for the Halloween season, check out The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware. I’ve read three other books by Ware (see bottom of post) and this is by far creepier and scarier than the others! I love any story that…
I’m so behind on my book reviews! Here are 3: The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark, One Two Three by Laurie Frankel and How To Be Eaten by Maria Adelman | Book Club Mom
Hey Everyone, I’m so behind on my book reviews, and have already started a new book, so before I forget what they were all about, here are three shorter reviews! The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark I started this thriller on the fly while I was waiting to get called for a doctor’s appointment.…
Classic gothic fiction – so many books I didn’t know about! | Book Club Mom
I recently went down the rabbit hole to explore gothic fiction. Before I began, a few things came to mind: haunted houses and castles, hints of the supernatural, romance, dark imagery, death, and all the descriptors on the above graphic. Here’s what I else found out! Characterized by mystery and terror, the genre took shape…
Book Review: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson | Book Club Mom
Case HistoriesbyKate Atkinson You might know that I usually prefer to read stand-alone books because I don’t like the idea of committing to a bunch of books in a series, but I’m taking an exception here. I recently read Case Histories, which was first published twenty years ago. I selected it for our mystery book…
Book review: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore | Book Club Mom
The God of the WoodsbyLiz Moore Here’s another winner, a great atmospheric mystery about Barbara Van Laar, a thirteen-year-old camper who goes missing, fourteen years after her eight-year-old brother, Bear disappeared on the same campgrounds. Set in the Adirondacks in New York, the story begins in 1975 on the morning of Barbara’s disappearance. As the…
End of summer means time for a fall reading list! | Book Club Mom
I’ve always liked the end of the summer. Now I know summer isn’t really over...yet, but this morning, I loaded up my Kindle with some interesting books, and put holds on a bunch of books I want to read. I’ll have plenty to keep me busy while I wait. Now it will just be a…
Book Review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee | Book Club Mom
PachinkobyMin Jin Lee I don’t know what took me so long to read this fantastic family saga, spanning eighty years and following three generations of a Korean family in Japanese-occupied Korea and Japan. The story begins in 1910, in a small fishing village in South Korea, with Hoonie and Yangjin. Yangjin was just fifteen when…
Who’s That Indie Author? T. W. Dittmer | Book Club Mom
T. W. Dittmer Name: T. W. Dittmer Book Titles: The Valley Walker and Five-Toed Tigress Genre: Mystical Thrillers Tell us about yourself. My full name is Timothy Watson Dittmer. My friends call me Tim. I was raised in Gary, Indiana, the son of a steel worker who turned to preaching the Gospel. After high school…
Book Review: The Block Party by Jamie Day | Book Club Mom
The Block PartybyJamie Day Back in the early 2000s, I became a fan of the TV show, Desperate Housewives. As I browsed for something new to read, I chose The Block Party because the premise reminded me of the ladies on Wisteria Lane. The story is both a murder mystery and a juicy drama, featuring…
Book Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury | Book Club Mom
Something Wicked This Way ComesbyRay Bradbury I was itching to read a classic and came up with a win when I selected Something Wicked This Way Comes. I don’t gravitate to science fiction, fantasy, or horror books, but I would highly recommend this book to all readers because it has it all: highly developed characters,…
Who’s That Indie Author? Robbie Cheadle | Book Club Mom
Name: Robbie Cheadle Book Title: Square Peg in a Round Hole, Poetry, Art & Creativity by Robbie Cheadle Genre: Poetry Tell us about yourself: I am a chartered accountant working in a 'Big Four' auditing firm. I have passions for nature conservation, art, poetry, writing, cake and fondant art, and blogging. I also love to…
Sharing Shorts (on YouTube) July 2024 | Book Club Mom
Hi Everyone, Here's a new batch of shorts from my YouTube channel. What are Shorts? Shorts are 30-second (or shorter!) videos, kind of like stories on Instagram, but they don’t go away after 24 hours. You don't need a YouTube account to watch them. Click the titles at the bottom to view. ZionYoung deer with…
Two Audiobook reviews: A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley and Into the Water by Paula Hawkins | Book Club Mom
As you may know, I have been reading like crazy to complete my summer reading challenge and chose these audiobooks to complete two squares. One was just to listen to an audiobook and the other was to read a book I started but never finished. I enjoyed the experience of listening to these books, because…
What’s That Movie? Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud | Book Club Mom
As part of my summer reading challenge, I had to watch a foreign film on Kanopy, our library’s streaming service. I selected Nelly & Monsieur, a French movie, released in 1995. The film was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language and was winner of César Awards for Best…
Book Review: Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad | Book Club Mom
Crazy for the StormbyNorman Ollestad ★★★ I’ve always liked survival stories and, because I needed to read a memoir for my summer reading challenge, I selected Crazy for the Storm, published in 2010. In 1979 Ollestad, at age eleven, was the only survivor of a plane crash in California’s Big Bear mountains. The pilot and…
Book Review: Seven Dirty Secrets by Natalie D. Richards | Book Club Mom
Seven Dirty SecretsbyNatalie D. Richards ★★★★★ I was looking for a Young Adult book as part of my summer reading challenge and, because I enjoyed Five Perfect Strangers by the same author (read my review here), I thought Seven Dirty Secrets would also be good. I was right! It’s another YA thriller that is just…
The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov | Book Club Mom
The Lady with the Dog and Other StoriesbyAnton Pavlovich Chekhov There’s a lot of great literature on the public domain and I found this terrific collection of short stories by Anton Chekhov for free at the Kindle store. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian playwright and writer of short fiction and is considered one of…
Who’s That Indie Author? Peter Leighton | Book Club Mom
Peter Leighton Name: Peter Leighton Book Title: The Invasion of Mrralda Genre: Mystical Science Fiction Tell us about yourself: I have been a chiropractor, a chef, an academic dean at an acupuncture, school, a teacher and a tech support person. Tell us about your writing career. When did you first start writing? I published my…
Book Club Mom’s blogging update: my summer reading challenge bingo card! | Book Club Mom
Hey Everyone, I’ve been reading like mad as part of our library’s summer reading program, trying to fill in as many bingo squares as I can and now I’m behind on a few reviews. I hope to get them out this weekend! Here’s a look at our library’s bingo card and the squares I’ve completed:…
Book Review: The Expats by Chris Pavone | Book Club Mom
The ExpatsbyChris Pavone Are you looking for something fun and intriguing to read this summer? I enjoyed reading this expat spy thriller set in Luxembourg and Paris. It’s full of twists and turns to the very end and requires just enough thinking to make it a great choice. The story begins when Kate and Dexter…
What’s That Movie? Wuthering Heights (1939) | Book Club Mom
I recently watched the original 1939 film of Wuthering Heights, starring Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, and David Niven, and directed by William Wyler. The film is based on Emily Brontë’s classic 1847 Gothic novel of the same name and received nominations for eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor). Gregg Toland…
Book Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë | Book Club Mom
Wuthering HeightsbyEmily Brontë ★★★★★ I was in the mood to read a classic a few weeks ago and on a whim, I opened up Wuthering Heights, a Gothic novel first published in 1847, one I’d owned for at least ten years since I downloaded it to my Kindle. I think I first read it in…
Book Review: Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto | Book Club Mom
Dial A for AuntiesbyJesse Q. Sutanto ★★★ What do you do when you accidentally murder someone? For Meddy Chan the answer is simple. Call her aunties. Meddy may feel trapped and frustrated by her overbearing aunts and mother, but she knows that when she needs help, her immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family will drop everything and do…
What’s That Movie? Old Yeller (1957) | Book Club Mom
Old Yeller Disney FilmBased on the book by Fred Gipson1957 ★★★★ I recently read Old Yeller by Fred Gipson (read my review here) and couldn’t remember if I’d ever seen the movie. So I checked it out from the library and gave it a watch. Although the film was made before I was born, once…
On This Father’s Day: Memories of Dairy Queen with my father | Book Club Mom
Image: commons.wikimedia.org “I can help you with that,” my Dad offered. I was sitting on a bench, eating a Dairy Queen cone. I had just taken a small lick, the vanilla swirl still nearly perfectly perched on the cone. Dad was sitting next to me. It was hot outside, but not as hot as it…
Who’s That Indie Author? Noelle Granger | Book Club Mom
Noelle Granger Name: Noelle A. Granger Book Titles: The Last Pilgrim; Death at the Asylum (fifth in the Rhe Brewster series) Genre: Historical fiction and cozy mystery Tell us about yourself: That could take a loooong time since I am in my 70s! Basically I am a retired academic who decided that writing fiction would…
Book Review: Old Yeller by Fred Gipson | Book Club Mom
Old YellerbyFred Gipson ★★★★★ If you’re looking for a great classic children’s book that will make you tear up at the end, I recommend Old Yeller, a Newbery Honor book published in 1956. I know that’s a long time ago, but we really need to keep these classics alive! Set during the 1860s in the…
In case you missed them! March-April-May 2024 Posts | Book Club Mom
Hi Everyone, I hope you're all doing well! In case you've missed them, here are my posts from March, April, and May. BOOK REVIEWS An Elderly Lady Is up to No Good by Helene Tursten – highly entertaining quick read about an old woman who takes doing what she wants to the next level. The…
Book Review: Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz | Book Club Mom
Ashley BellbyDean Koontz ★★★★ Lately, I’ve been curious about Dean Koontz’s books because the last one I read was more than twenty years ago. I don’t remember the title, but I know that somewhere the book appears in the background of an old family photo, so I’m going to try to figure out which one…
Today on YouTube: How do you record audiobooks? Author JP McLean taught herself! | Book Club Mom
I was so impressed by how author Jo-Anne McLean taught herself how to create audiobooks from her print books. Hear what she learned about the process and herself, some of the technology challenges she encountered, and more, including a look at the most ridiculous microphone I bought for my channel! Watch here! https://youtu.be/u56Q5WT33GM Thanks for…
In observance of Memorial Day, sharing the best war books, from now and all-time | Book Club Mom
In observance of Memorial Day here in the U.S., I’m sharing notable books about war. Too keep things simpler, I’ve mostly kept to fiction. However, I did include a few nonfiction, including The Art of War by Sun Tzu and Night by Eli Wiesel. For more information about the books, you can visit the links…
Book Review: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride | Book Club Mom
The Heaven & Earth Grocery StorebyJames McBride ★★★★★ When my boss commented that she liked this book so much she read it twice in six months, I knew she was on to something. I’d already started reading it, but I had put it aside because I had a little trouble getting into it at first.…
Book Review: The Maid by Nita Prose | Book Club Mom
The MaidbyNita Prose Here’s a feel-good read about a naïve and awkward young woman who works as a maid in a 5-star boutique hotel and gets caught up in a murder mystery. Molly Gray is twenty-five and out on her own for the first time since her Gran died. She takes immense pride in restoring…