The New Title Tuesday recommendation is Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler. It is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew eliminating the overt sexism that always marred my appreciation of The Bard’s famous comedy. Publisher Summary: Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric … Continue reading Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler, A Reader’s Advisory
My New Title Tuesday recommendation You Can’t Touch My Hair and Other Things I Still Have to Explain, by Phoebe Robinson is, “A hilarious and timely essay collection about race, gender, and pop culture from upcoming comedy superstar and 2 Dope Queens pod-caster Phoebe Robinson.” We have come face-to-face with the racial, gender, and class divisions in our … Continue reading You Can’t Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson, A Reader’s Advisory
How to Be Dull: Standing Out Next to Genius is one of the funniest books I’ve read this year. I read a lot of self help, self improvement, self actualization books and How to Be Dull shines a hilariously dark spotlight on the myriad benefits of staying just as you are. The humor is dry and … Continue reading How to be Dull by Basil Morley, A Reader’s Advisory
Publisher summary The Bad Decisions Playlist: Sixteen-year-old Austin is always messing up and then joking his way out of tough spots. The sudden appearance of his allegedly dead father, who happens to be the very-much-alive rock star Shane Tyler, stops him cold. Austin—a talented musician himself—is sucked into his newfound father’s alluring music-biz orbit, pulling his … Continue reading The Bad Decisions Playlist by Michael Rubens, A Reader’s Advisory
It takes a special kind of writer to portray humor and horror in the same breath. Chances are you've heard of Joseph Heller's Catch-22. It's known as something of an enigma; though it covers a very serious topic (war) with vivid detail and intense emotion, the absolute absurdity of everything going on makes for some laugh-out-loud … Continue reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, A Book Review
My daughter hates to read (gasp!) so I'm always combing through the stacks and online looking for reading material for reluctant readers- like this book. When Crocs Fly combines the sarcastic put downs and delivery of Garfield with the physical humor of Looney Toons. The jokes are mainly puns, misunderstandings, or a combination of both. The … Continue reading When Crocs Fly by Stephan Pastis, A Reader’s Advisory
How to Talk About Places You've Never Been is a funny little book. At first, I couldn't figure out what tone the author was wanting to convey because he, quite seriously, discusses why and how to describe places that the reader has never been- a topic that I, before I read this, didn't take seriously … Continue reading How To Talk About Places You’ve Never Been by Pierre Bayard, a Book Review
Is there really such a thing as a "clean break"? Maybe you've gone through a rough breakup. Petty arguments, childish feuds, long conversations...chances are, though, you've never gone through anything quite like the 13 presented here. Jennifer Wright's book It Ended Badly is aptly named; she takes the reader through what she calls the 13 worst breakups … Continue reading It Ended Badly: 13 of the Worst Breakups in History by Jennifer Wright, a Book Review
The O'Fallon Public Library Blog 