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Raging Biblio-holism

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

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Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs #1)

January 11, 2011 by Drew

The Short Version: Maisie Dobbs’ first adventure, in which we spend just about half of the book finding out who Maisie is, another quarter of the book establishing Maisie’s present, and a final quarter solving a mystery that seemed a little bit more important than it actually was. The Review: So here’s another established detective series that has popped up now and then but I’ve never picked up til now.  Post-WWI, London, Mystery… all things I love, but (slightly sexist […]

Categories: Fiction, Literary Challenges • Tags: Detective, Fiction, I'm Mad For Maisie!, Jacqueline Winspear, Maisie Dobbs, Mystery

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52 Books. Check.

June 23, 2010 by Drew

Cannonball Read II Nov. 1, 2009 – Jun. 23, 2010 52 books. What’s next?

Categories: Cannonball Read II, News/Updates • Tags: Business, Cannonball Read II, Literary Challenges, Updates

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The Magicians

June 23, 2010 by Drew

Whenever a series gets compared, in any way, to the Harry Potter series, I get nervous about it.  I mean, Harry was a huge part of my life and that series holds a specific and unimpeachable place in the pantheon of literature.  It has also become a go-to “we’ll sure get them to read THIS book” marketing ploy.  I’ve never trusted book-marketing-people all that much but the minute “the next Harry Potter” started to be a thing, I started to […]

Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fantasy, Fiction, Literary Challenges • Tags: Book #52, Cannonball Read II, Fantasy, Fiction, Lev Grossman, The Magicians

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The Shadow of the Wind

June 19, 2010 by Drew

I was inspired to pick up this book after a lunch date this spring.  I’d heard about it and the cover certainly interested me – but I’d never actually picked it up.  Something seemed a little too “Spanish melodrama” for me.  However, I was immediately sold on NEEDING to read this book when this girl uttered the following phrase: “It begins in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books…” The idea sparked to life in my head and I knew I had […]

Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literary Challenges, Literature • Tags: Book #51, Cannonball Read II, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Fiction, Literature, The Shadow of the Wind

1

The Girl Who Played With Fire

June 15, 2010 by Drew

I don’t actually have much to say about this book.  It is even better than The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and I am itching to read the third book in the so-called ‘trilogy.’  Yeah, I air-quoted that.  Know why?  Larsson, before his untimely death, had nearly finished a fourth book and had outlined a further two, with little bits and pieces written here and there.  He’d planned ten books.  Google this stuff, I don’t have time to write about […]

Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction • Tags: 5+, Book #50, Cannonball Read II, Crime, Fiction, Lisbeth Salander, Millenium Trilogy, Mystery, Steig Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire

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Completion of the Quest

June 11, 2010 by Drew

I realized today that I finished Quest the Second!  Once Upon A Time IV is, for me, over – and I’m glad I could have been a part of it.  The books all counted towards the Cannonball Read II, which was an added bonus.  Love that two-bird-one-book thing. For the Quest, I had to read one book in each of the four categories.  For those who like neat and tidy organized lists of things (like me), here you go: Fantasy […]

Categories: News/Updates, Once Upon A Time IV • Tags: Business, Literary Challenges, Once Upon a Time IV, Updates

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There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales

June 11, 2010 by Drew

So after Cloud Atlas, I’d intended to hop right into the second Steig Larsson book and then into The Shadow of the Wind… but I needed a palate cleanser.  I needed something light, something that wouldn’t require much investment – and what better place to turn than a short story collection? I’d been hearing about this collection for some time – this woman is apparently the best Russian author I’ve never heard of.  Plus, I love scary fairy tales.  So […]

Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Horror, Literary Challenges, Once Upon A Time IV, Short Stories • Tags: Book #49, Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Once Upon a Time IV, Short Stories, There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby

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Cloud Atlas

June 10, 2010 by Drew

Hmm.  What to even say about this book. It has been on my radar for a while – it won the Rooster at Tournament of Books a few years ago and it keeps coming up on lists of the most important/best books of the last ten years.  Last twenty years.  Last half century.  And it is.  It is a work of art, an intricate puzzle-box of a book that rewards a little extracurricular thought.  But it is also lacking a […]

Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literary Challenges, Literature • Tags: Book #48, Cannonball Read II, Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell, Fiction, Literature, The Rooster, The Tournament of Books 2005

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The Spellmans Strike Again (Document #4)

June 2, 2010 by Drew

Working at Swartz Campbell automatically means a Spellman book.  I mean, I read the first one over Christmas my freshman year – but I had no idea there was a sequel until I was on a lunch break at SC sophomore year… and the rest, as they say, is history.  Originally I’d heard this was going to be the last in the series – and then Lisa Lutz gave an interview where she said that was all a lie and […]

Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literary Challenges • Tags: Book #47, Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Izzy Spellman, Lisa Lutz, Mystery, The Spellmans Strike Again

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