Sarah Stewart's picture book biography, illustrated by David Small, of Elizabeth Brown:
"She didn't like to play with dolls, She didn't like to skate. ShSarah Stewart's picture book biography, illustrated by David Small, of Elizabeth Brown:
"She didn't like to play with dolls, She didn't like to skate. She learned to read quite early And at an incredible rate."
As with Chaucer's Clerk who prefers to spend money on books than food or clothes. She collected books as many of us do on Goodreads, and later in life she created the foundation for a library, donating all her books to the project.
A book for book lovers. I read this in the age-appropriate process myself of giving away thousands of my books, narrowing down the collection to barest essentials, which still is holding steady at 2-3,000, I'm sure....more
And a picture book probably more for adults than children about an iconic editor, Ursula Nordstrom, that worked with Margaret Wise Brown (Good Night, And a picture book probably more for adults than children about an iconic editor, Ursula Nordstrom, that worked with Margaret Wise Brown (Good Night, Moon), Maurice Sendak and more. Fills in a gap for picture books about the important role of editors. This one joked that she edited "good books for bad children," though Beth Kephart contends that Nordstrom always had the unique view of kids in her head when choosing and designing and advising on the development of books.
I like the illustration work of Chloe Bristol very much. I also like the story, though it's probably not one kids will be particularly written for. But I'm glad it's in the world. I know the importance of editors, an often hidden dimension of writing and publication. ...more
I bought a signed copy of this AT the Bookshop at the End of the World, sold to me by Lance, the enthusiastic and loving husband of the author, who asI bought a signed copy of this AT the Bookshop at the End of the World, sold to me by Lance, the enthusiastic and loving husband of the author, who assured me this would be one of the best books I will ever read. I loved my time talking to Lance! The bookshop is locate in the small villageManapouri, New Zealand (!!) on the edge of Fiordland. Since I was there and ytalked to him I of course had to buy it and read it, and I am glad I did!
The book alternates between stories of Ruth's life, her memoir prior to the bookstores called Two Wee (the national bird is the Tui! ha!) and stories of many people who she has met in the bookstores over the years. My initial impression was that it was going to be a (merely?) sentimental book by an older lady bookseller (review written by an older man, check), which would have be fine, but man, she lived quite the dramatic life. I won't tell much about it, but she survived some brutal things.
Early on she met Lance, too, and they were engaged to be married. Her parents wanted a Catholic wedding and Lance, who was not Catholic, agreed, but the priest said they had to raise any children Catholic. Lance resisted, saying kids need to make their own choices, and . . the deal was off, and Lance took off, and so did Ruth, on the High Seas, sailing on the Pacific (meeting headhunters in a port in New Guinea, robbed by pirates, gambling), until decades and many relationships later, they meet again. . . a love story!
It's a wild and endearing story, well-told and engaging, harsh and sweet and funny, so to just think of Ruth and Lance as two old folks in a wee bookstore. . . well they are, but you have NO idea what lives they lived!...more
I read this essay by George Orwell because I generally love his essays and think he is one of the best writers ever. And then, a Goodreads group is foI read this essay by George Orwell because I generally love his essays and think he is one of the best writers ever. And then, a Goodreads group is forming on the reading of this essay so I joined it. My general view is that it is meant to be funny in mocking most of the customers that come into bookstores. He worked at a bookstore part-time and came to hate books and book buyers in the process and that’s a fair justification for an essay though possibly amusingly ironic for a writer of books. But as funny and charming it seemed to me at the beginning, I began to mark places I thought might not fly with general readers, or me, as most of us he would seem to disdain.
For instance, he talks of “paranoiac customers and dead bluebottles;” he speaks of many customers as a “nuisance,” noting “two well-known types of pest,” and so on. He thinks of many customers as “not quite certifiable lunatics” and about others that “there’s something moth-eaten and aimless about them.”
I know he is trying to be witty and smart when he says that he thinks “that Modern books for children are rather horrible things,” and when he speaks of mysteries as “that frightful torrent of trash” and when he makes it clear that “I never buy junk,” but what’s the overall take-away here? That he is a bit of a snob, that most genres beyond literary fiction are junk, which is not the kind of attitude I pick up from Down and Out in Paris in London or 1984. I get it that he is sad that most people who come into bookstores do not seem to be great readers of books, as he is, but by great readers he almost exclusively means readers of classics.
Note: I read and love literary fiction and classics, but I also read children’s books, YA, graphic novels, and try not to discriminate against particular genres. I work in a department that is full of literary snobs, I’m afraid, so for me this issue is personal. ...more
I thought Grant Snider's book about creativity, The Shape of Ideas, was pretty good, just okay. I do like his simple, cute art style, that I find inviI thought Grant Snider's book about creativity, The Shape of Ideas, was pretty good, just okay. I do like his simple, cute art style, that I find inviting and warm. I read this book because it was one of the nominated books for the Goodreads 2020 Graphic Novel/Comics category. Each year a booklover's book or two seem to get nominated, and this (again) sweetly and invitingly illustrated book of cartoons and one or two page comics about books, writing, and reading seems designed to appeal to we sixty million Goodreads readers. And of course, he's right, we do judge each other by our bookshelves! Well, anyway, I think it's just fine, again, okay, and as before I am adding a point for the design, color, simple linework....more
I hereby predict the winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Graphic Novels and Comics of 2019: Book Love. I was lukewarm about the 2018 winner, HerdI hereby predict the winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Graphic Novels and Comics of 2019: Book Love. I was lukewarm about the 2018 winner, Herding Cats, and also about the runner-up, little Moments of Love, eh, and the (to me) hipper and edgier (snobbier?) books I loved were crushed in the process. Okay, so Sabrina and Berlin and Clyde Fans are not exactly feel-good comics, I'm sorry!
Goodreads tells me (and why should they lie?) that there are something like 60 million Goodreads members, most of them book lovers, natch. Let's say a couple mil vote on these awards. I would say a book about book love for a book lovers' site has a pretty good shot, wouldn't ya say, especially since it is done in the wildly popular book nerd style of Sarah Anderson and Catana Chetwynd.
What's wrong with it?! Well, yeah, I love books! I'd say it is recognizably about most people's geeky, introverted book-loving, and is nice, but is not surprising in any way, hardly made me smile, let alone laugh.