Rated Just Kids 10/10
One of the best, most affecting memoirs I have ever read. Just Kids is a love story — a love story between people, a love story about art — and a story of sacrifice for what one believes is their destiny. <br><br>My full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2011/01/just-kids-by-patti-smith.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.
Wants to read The Coming and Going of Strangers
Wants to read Thoughts Without Cigarettes
Rated Summerland 6/10
<div>I liked it well enough to keep reading all 500 pages, but how others may feel about it depends on one's feelings about baseball. If you know nothing about the literal rules of baseball, best of luck. If you love baseball, you will love or hate the magical elements here, depending on how much this story's rules grate against your own "magic of baseball" feelings. I am a person who will go to a minor league ball game every once in a while, and someone who badly played Little League, but I almost never watch it on TV, so I suppose it's not surprising that my feelings fall somewhere in the middle.<br><br>The attempts at having certain characters speak in dialect has... mixed results. The book is from 2002, so maybe different choices would be made today.</div>
Rated Doctor Who and the Pirates 8/10
<div>This is a mostly very silly one that reminded me a little bit of that episode of The X-Files with the vampires (and Luke Wilson), though this involves pirates. Part 3 is a Gilbert & Sullivan-style musical, but there are touching moments throughout, including the ending. The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn remain a great pair.</div>
Rated Motherwell: A Girlhood 8/10
<div>Sometimes the freshness of the wounds Orr still felt over her childhood cloud her perspective, but also it's understandable how she wrote this to say, "Hey, I am my own person, and here's what I've learned after a life trying to please others who imposed their own narrative about me." It is definitely also worth reading if one is looking to read about a specific time and place, '70s semi-industrial Scotland.</div>
Rated Wuthering Heights 6/10
<div>Audible threw me another free month, and I saw this available to stream, so I thought I'd finally give it a go. I've previously had luck with finally getting around to various classics via audiobooks, but I think maybe I would've found reading this a bit easier in print because of all the similar names. This is no slight on Joanne Froggatt, who narrates it very well. I was just having my own moments of "Wait, now WHO are we talking about?" so I had to consult the Wikipedia page to refresh my memory. Ymmv!<br><br>That said, this is a grim tale with some interesting bits, some less so, but I'm not sorry I listened.</div>
Rated The Chronology of Water 10/10
The thought that most often occurred to me while reading was that <i>The Chronology of Water</i> is perhaps the truest thing I’ve ever read. Even if I have not personally experienced the same things, I know many who have, and in the parts where Yuknavitch and I overlap, her words feel so true that they hurt in the same way a massaged, sore muscle does. I wince for a moment, then think, <i>Please keep going</i>. And within all the turmoil, I find a certain amount of peace. <br><br>(My full review appears at <a href="http://davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/swimming-away-chronology-of-water-by.html">The Quivering Pen</a>.)
Rated Gallifrey: The Inquiry 8/10
This is very good. Romana gets to flex some Presidential Power.
Rated Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You're Too Scared to Watch 8/10
What a delight this is! It's richer than I was expecting, with lovingly-detailed, compelling plot summaries and sharp analysis. I am absolutely the target market for this book.
Rated The Way the World Ends 10/10
What a great (long) short story. I had recently wondered if Jess Walter had any new material out, and how great to find this.
Rated The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists 10/10
<i>The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists</i> is a love letter. Canadian artist and writer Seth creates a simple world where comics are revered and treasured, and it is as lovely as a traditional sonnet. He creates a fictional world so believable that I had to do a bit of Google research to see if I'd just been ignorant of Canadian comics history. The bits of reality mixed with Seth's creations <i>feel</i> authentic, and that's all we can really ask of a good book.<br><br>(My full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2011/11/great-northern-brotherhood-of-canadian.html">Glorified Love Letters.</a>)
Rated Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving 8/10
This is a good, entertaining book. I reread many chapters, and I find the included family photos interesting. Now, would his siblings have a different version of events or say he is glossing over some of his own issues? Maybe, but what he presented was compelling. Repeatedly I've said that I like knowing the life stories of people. I like knowing what shaped their character, and <i>Fante</i> is a 2-for-1 deal. Well played, Dan.<br><br>(My full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2012/04/fante-by-dan-fante.html">Glorified Love Letters.</a>)
Rated Doctor Who: The Light at the End 10/10
So much fun - the story, the music, all of it.