Dog-eared & Overdue

Category: Reading for Pleasure

  • Reading Goals 2020

    Reading Goals 2020

    The Backlist Reader Challenge: fifteen books I’ve been hoarding on my To Read shelf are getting read this year! 📚 #BacklistReader

  • The Orphan in My Family Tree, Part 6

    The Orphan in My Family Tree, Part 6

    This is Part 6 of The Orphan in My Family Tree. It is the true tale of my ongoing search for the parents of my great great grandpa Fritz, who was orphaned in New York City in the late 1870s and sent, at the age of seven, to live with a foster family in Bow Valley, Nebraska.…

  • The Orphan in My Family Tree

    The Orphan in My Family Tree

    I’d like you to meet Fritz. He is my great great grandfather on my mother’s mother’s mother’s side. His parents are a mystery in my family tree, and I love a good mystery. Family lore informs us that Fritz, whose real name was Frederick, was born sometime in the early 1870s in New York City.…

  • 11 Books Behind

    11 Books Behind

    I’m generally more of a “the journey is the thing” person than a goal oriented person, but for the past few years I’ve enjoyed participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge. In years past, I’ve set reading goals that I knew would be pretty easy to blow past. My biggest challenge during those years was actually…

  • Reader Response: Thank You For Your Service

    Reader Response: Thank You For Your Service

    “Thank You For Your Service” was not optimistic or pessimistic, angry or trite. It was simply, overwhelmingly honest. Like, two boxes of tissues honest.

  • The Half-Pint Award: What’s in a Name?

    The Half-Pint Award: What’s in a Name?

    I am instead suggesting we have continued conversations as a reading community about building the best collections we can that include characters and stories that have the potential to connect with each of us in a way that makes us all better and that increases our understanding of our society, our history, and our connectedness.

  • Reader Response: War and Peace

    Reader Response: War and Peace

    I loved War and Peace from the moment Pierre bumbled into scheming Anna Pavlovna’s party and proceeded to horrify everyone by fawning over Napoleon.

  • Book Review: Ulysses

    Book Review: Ulysses

    I appreciate Joyce’s technique and experiments with style. I found his echoes of, and connections to, other literary works rather fun. I, in turns, enjoyed Joyce’s cleverness and found that cleverness eye-rollingly overdone.

  • Reader Response: Ulysses

    Reader Response: Ulysses

    I look forward to doing a book review for Ulysses next, but a Reader Response based on my margin notes felt more appropriate given the nature of the work.  Okay so this may not be as bad as I remember I mean it’s just some dudes eating breakfast and borrowing money from each other and then…

  • Book Review: Praying for Sheetrock

    Book Review: Praying for Sheetrock

    Melissa Fay Greene’s Praying for Sheetrock is a well-researched, detail-oriented, unhurried read about a tumultuous time in the history of McIntosh County, Georgia.