Ashley's comments
(member since Dec 31, 2007)
Ashley's comments from the BOOK-A-HOLICS group.
(showing 1-20 of 876)
December 13, 2009
No Business Like Show Business-
It's like an upbeat, song-filled Confession of an English Opium Eater-autobiographical, erudite, never wandering far from the subject of obsession, in this case "Golden Age" musicals(nothing before 1971, please!). This delightful memoir explodes with enthusiasm and goodwill, and you may very well end up convinced that musical theatre is the answer to everything.
Title-What Would Barbara Do? How Musicals Changed My Life
Author-Emma Brockes
Published-2007 by HarperCollins
December 12, 2009
Comedic Art-
Drew Friedman's "warts, wrinkles, and all" style of caricature has found the perfect material in these master comics of the Borscht Belt. Milton Berle, Henry Youngman, Jack Benny, the Marx Brothers, Sid Caesar, Don Rickles, and many more are captured and slammed down on the page. The very heart of the comedy of these legendary performers seems to be revealed in Friedman's beyond-witty portraits.
Title-Old Jewish Comedians(A Blabi Storybook)
Author-Drew Friedman
Published-2006 by Fantagraphics
December 11, 2009
Not Only The Dead Know Brooklyn-
"I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn" is how The Brooklyn Follies begins, and if you can resist an opening like that, you're made of steelier stuff than we are. Nathan Glass finds Brooklyn, instead of deathly quiet, a lively and somewhat entertaning place to live. Paul Auster's style and intelligence keep the story above and beyond what in lesser hands would have been sloppy sentimentality.
Title-The Brooklyn Follies
Author-Paul Auster
Published-2006 by Picador
December 10, 2009
Artful Thriller-
Jonathan Santlofer has cleverly combined story and art in this tale of a police sketch artist, Nate Rodriguez, and a serial killer who leaves drawings behind with his victims. Sketches by Nate and his killer alternate throughout the narrative, giving the reader details to mull overand contributing in their own way to a nicely convoluted plot.
Title-Anatomy of Fear: A Novel of Visual Suspense
Author-Jonathan Santlofer
Published-2007 by William Morrow
December 9, 2009
We Remember-
"It would occasionally happen that I would walk into a room and certain people would begin to cry." writes Daniel Mendelsohn near the beginning of his book. They cried because the author so closely resembled his great-uncle who had lived in Bolechow, Poland, and who was exterminated with his wife and four daughters. Mendelsohn set out to learn the story of these six people, how they lived, and what happened to them. Through his search we are brought to a deeper understanding of this human catastrophe than we would have ever known otherwise. An engrossing, affecting, and thought-provoking narrative.
Title-The Lost: A Search For Six of Six Million
Author- Daniel Mendelsohn
Published-2006 by HarperCollins
December 8, 2009
Real Fantasy Baseball-
Sam Walker thought he had the edge in his fantasy baseball tournament because, as a writer for The Wall Street Journal, he was able to talk to the players and coaches as well as use all the stars available to his competition. This is the laughable and lunatic story of how it didn't work out at all the way he had planned. In the end it offers some insight into real-world baseball that, according to Booklist's review, "gives his account of fantasy fanaticism an unexpected and satisfying depth."
Title-Fantasyland: A Sportswriter's Obsessive Bid To Win The World's Most Ruthless Fantasy Baseball
Author-Sam Walker
Published-2007 by Penguin
December 7, 2009
The Queen, The Duke, Etc-
BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman takes a bemused look at an institution that wields a fraction of the power it had in the days of Henry VIII, yet still creates headlines and keeps us spellbound with all its gossip and flashy, tricked-out tradition. The lure and lore of royalty, from the funny to the bizarre to the pathetic to the never quite sublime, are all here in this very well researched and entertaining study.
Title-On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry Into Some Strangely Related Families
Author- Jeremy Paxman
Published- 2007 by Public Affairs
December 6, 2009
Take Me To The Movies-
This wonderful guide for family movie-watching will help you pick movies that the whole family will love, but it's also fun to read for itself. Written by Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr, it reminds us of the really good movies and why we liked them, and it sparkles with its own life-loving style. Peter Bogdanovich says it is "carried out with integrity, intelligence, sensitivity, and totally without condescension. Ty Burr's book cand lead to a lot of pleasure-of the life-long kind."
Title-The Best Old Movies For Families: A Guide To Watching Together
Author-Ty Burr
Published-2007 by Anchor
December 5, 2009
The Ever-Popular Love and Death-
Lisey's Story is very much about Lisey's deceased, famous-author husband, Scott. And, as usual, in this supernatural thriller Stephen King does not disappoint when it comes to the wierd, the frightening,and the suspenseful. However, it is ultimately the love between Lisey and Scott that moves and impresses us the most.
Title-Lisey's Story
Author- Stephen King
Published-2007 by Pocket Books
December 4, 2009
World Traveloguer-
Burton Holmes invented the term travelogue back in 1904. In thos days, when transalantic flights were unheard of, Holmes traveled the world in the summer, then presented photos, hand-painted glass slides, and even some moving pictures of his travels to American audiences in the winter. To look at these materials now is to step back into the world of 100 years ago. A good gift for armchair time-travelers.
Title-Burton Holmes Travelogues: The Greatest Traveler of His Time, 1892-1952
Author-edited by Genoa Caldwell
Published-2006 by Taschen
December 3, 2009
Tinsel Town-
Jane Smiley has set her new novel in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, where a group of friends and family, all connected to Hollywood, have gathered on the night of the Academy Awards in March 2003 to escape news of the war in Iraq. Modeled on the Decameron, it is an extended conversion about sex, politcs, sex, religion, sex, food,sex, Hollywood...you get the idea. Up-to-date and on the money.
Title-Ten Days In The Hills
Author-Jane Smiley
Published-2007 by Knopf
December 2, 2009
Maps: Lots and Lots of Maps-
Five hundred years of maps are gathered together in this historical atlas, showing not only how the United States grew and evolved, but also how perceptions of it changed. Informative captions accompany the maps. A beautiful and detailed volume that would make a great gift for history buffs.
Title-Historical Atlas of the Unitded States
Author-Derek Hayes
Published-2006 by University of California Press
December 1, 2009
Ming and Qing-
In 17th-century China a young girl lives, dies, and becomes a ghost. Caught up in this seemingly improbable story, the reader becomes immersed in the world of the Ming and Qing dynasties-its operas(such as The Peony Pavillion) its customs(arranged marriages,foot bindings), its celebrations, gardens, and beliefs. This is the kind of book that absolutely carries you away.
Title-Peony in Love
Author- Lisa See
Published-2007 by Random House
November 30, 2009
Off The Coast Of Loneliness-
This thought-provoking and heartbreakingly beautiful novel tells the story of Thomas Cave in 1616, who takes on a bet with his fellow whalers of the ship Heartsease that he can survive a winter on the uninhabited Svalbard coast of Greenland. Left with provisions and an extra burden of grief and loss, Cave struggles through, but not unscathed.Publishers Weekly starred review.
Title-The Solitude of Thomas Cave
Author-Georgina Harding
Published-2007 by Bloomsbury, USA
November 29, 2009
Art and Heart-
At once art book, pictorial history, and documentary, this stunning culmination of 17 years' research captures the genesis, outbreak, and development of Los Angeles graffiti. Page after page is filled with eye-popping tags, murals, and collective efforts, and it's accompanied by a CD. A gorgeous coffee table book and engrossing history.
Title-Graffit L.A.: Street Styles and Art
Author-Steve Grody
Published-2007 by Harry N. Abrams
November 28, 2009
This masterpiece from Chilean-born novelist Roberto Bolano(1953-2003) follows two idealists-philospher-poets, Arturo(who stands for the author) and Ulises, from 1975 to the 1990's. The two start off in Mexico City and travel far and wide, poking fun at ideas and people everywhere they go, having love affairs, talking philosophy, engaging in quests, and making enemies. Points of view continually shift in a chorus of many voices. Try this oratorio of a novel.
Title-The Savage Detectives
Author-Roberto Bolano; translated by Natasha Wimmer
Published-2007 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
November 27,2009
Today we celebrate James Agee's 100th birthday. Agee died before he could finish this poignant autobiographical novel about the unexpected death of a father and that terrible event's effects on his family. Particularly compelling is the portrait of the six-year-old son and his attempts to comprehend what happened. A Death in the Family won the Pulitzer Prize in 1958, three years after Agee's death.
Title-A Death in the Family
Author-James Agee
Published-1957; 2006 by Penguin
November 26, 2009 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
It's Thanksgiving("the time of year when things go wrong if they're going to") in the year 2000. Frank Bascombe(familiar from The Sportswriter and Independence Day)is enduring it with an angry son, a second wife who's left him, prostate cancer, and various other plights in this, the "Permanent Period" of his life-"when who you feel yourself to be is pretty much how people will remember you once you've croaked." The nuances and shadings of The Lay of the Land demonstrates Richard Ford's extraordinary talent for depicting the American landscape at the century's turn.
Title-Lay of the Land
Author-Richard Ford
Published-2006 by Knopf
November 25, 2009
Cozy Romance-
Janet Evanovich, ever the bestselling writer, brightens our favorite November holiday with this delectable romantic confection about a teapot maker in colonial Williamsburg who falls for a rabbit-owning pediactrician. It's light and easy, like the best Thanksgiving dessert.
Title-Thanksgiving
Author-Janet Evanovich
Published-2006 by Harper Torch
November 24, 2009
For Chocolate Lovers-
Winemaker John Scharffenberger and physician Robert Steinberg first met in 1979; 15 years later they cofounded Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker. Now they have brought out a beautiful hymn to chocolate, accompanied by equally delicious photographs. The recipes, including some nondessert entries, are all within the grasp of most cooks. If you have only one chocolate cookbook, make it this one. Publishers Weekly starred review.
Title- The Essence of Chocolate: Recipes For Baking and Cooking With Fine Chocolate
Author-John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg
Published-2006 by Hyperion
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