“One day it occurred to me that the warm, squeaky, smelly things squirming around next to me were my brothers and sister. I was very disappointed.”  Read more>

It’s not every day a girl sits down and says to herself: I wonder what blind people fantasize about as they pleasure themselves? And then decides to make a book full of forms and shapes that would incite the imaginations of those who appreciate the human body for how it feels rather than how it looks.  Read more>

I recently caught author Raj Patel on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. He was discussing his book, The Value of Nothing, a title that comes from an Oscar Wilde observation in which he says “people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”  Read more>

Growing Up Magical

So I count myself as pretty lucky.

Why you ask? Well, a number of reasons, but mostly because I grew up with Harry Potter.  Read more>

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Are you there Judy Blume? It’s me, Adrienne. I hope you’re listening, because I want to thank you (oh, it was so long ago) for giving me and all my tweeny-bopper buddies worlds in which to escape, to be enlightened, and to experience the confusing journey through pre-adulthood. We lived in your books.  Read more>

Preggatinis: Mixology for the Mom-To-Be is the first book from Natalie Bovis-Nelsen, aka “The Liquid Muse.” It’s officially a cocktail guide for pregnancy but really it’s a book for everyone. Who hasn’t hosted a dinner and suddenly realized that one (or more) of your guests doesn’t drink? What are you going to offer them? Water?  Read more>

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Reading a book review is as risky as asking a server in a restaurant how the specials are – what if you have different tastes? What if you long for grilled fiction with a side of thriller and they are serving memoirs? Well worry not. With my new series, The Last Great Book I Read, your brain will not go hungry. You will not find self-important criticism or mind-numbing scholarly spoilers. But you will enjoy a feast of teasers –  Read more>

A while back, I confessed my misgivings about the Kindle I’d just received for Christmas. In slightly melodramatic fashion, I lamented the passing of yet another old form of communication (words on the printed page) in favor of a new one (the Kindle and its kind – iPods for books, basically.) However – upon further review…I don’t know. Maybe it’s pretty cool.  Read more>

I’m all about garbage – the biodegradable kind. I diligently dump my family’s chopped rubbish into the composter in the backyard – it sinks into the soil and becomes one again with Mother Earth. My life’s food waste will never see a landfill. I believe I am a better person for it.  Read more>

The remarkable novel Push by Sapphire, is a hard read. Not every reader wants to confront a story of an illiterate sixteen year old girl in the depths of 1980’s Harlem who is pregnant for the second time by her father. But narrator Claireece Precious Jones raises tough universal questions. Why do people do the things they do? Are some people just not wanted? Can we give love if we’ve never received it?  Read more>

Actually, he mistakenly put it in the wrong pile and my seven year old is still uncertain as to how I could know that an unmarked box nestled among his loot was really meant for his dad and not him – the person who actually received it.  Read more>

I am here because of a book.  Read more>