Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the ...

Forgive me my denomination and my town; I am a Christian minister and an American. A Month of Sundays by John Updike . This rather coy b...

Quite often, by the time the relationship becomes sexualized, the victim is already deeply immersed; she has already heavily invested her h...

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted i...

Herb Caen was San Francisco's legendary newspaper columnist. Barnaby Conrad describes Caen's prodigious work product in his intro...

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the ...

  Tinkers is a short book, but irritated me in a way that usually takes a longer book to do. I wanted to like it because I liked the ide...

World Without End is the sequel to Ken Follett's spectacular Pillars of the Earth . Pillars takes place in the 1100s, during the c...

As late as March, the Klamath still flowed high and muddy, still churned with rocks and snags and root wads.  In that month, Happy Camp...

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted i...

There are three German cookbooks in my cookbook library.  Given my Bavarian roots, I would think I'd have a few more.  But given the . ....

Sorry I messed up the post this morning! Insane week.  Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you ...

P. D. James's mysteries are book yoga for me. They follow an anticipated sequence, starting with a gentle warm up to the story, movin...

Murder in Belleville is the second mystery in Cara Black ’s exciting, Paris-based series featuring the sassy, half-American, half-Frenc...

The woman was a gifted healer.  From elements as common as honey and soot she could resolve almost anything that ailed him. -- Glow by J...

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted i...

  As soon as he stepped from the ladder, the trap door slammed shut above him. -- The Hapless Valet by Lenhardt Stevens.   Read my intervi...

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the s...

INCOMPLETE I signed up late for the Southern Reading Challenge , hosted by The Introverted Reader , but it is one that definitely has ...

In all my Okanagan River dike walking, I've found only three olive clubtail adults.  The first one I'd ever seen was camouflaged...

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted i...

Spring has finally come to Portland, after weeks of freaky cold and snow.  So it is time to take a look at the books I've read this yea...

Spring has finally come to Portland, with our first really warm and sunny day after weeks of freaky cold and snow.  Now, if only I could be ...

I am very pleased to announce that I am taking over hosting duties for Book Beginnings on Fridays! Thanks go to Becky at Page Turners for ...

Spring may have sprung on the calendar, but it snuck up on me since it is still very cold, rainy, and even a little snowy here in Portland. ...

John Hersey won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for A Bell for Adano , the story of an American Army officer in Sicily during World War II.  The ...

Wow! Four years ago today I started this blog on a whim.  I didn't expect that it would be so much fun or that I would keep at it for t...