Showing posts with label Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Challenge. Show all posts

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Review: Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog by Lisa Scottoline

Mostly culled from Scottoline's Chick Wit column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, these brief essays are collected under the subtitle of The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman. And they are indeed ordinary adventures as most women readers will recognize the situations that Scottoline has written about, having experienced them themselves at some point. She uses her family and her own life as the basis for these very short (they were published in a newspaper after all) life pieces. While they provided some entertainment during the reading, they have been, unfortunately, very forgettable since then. And while I'm certain that I must have chuckled at least once, I cannot for the life of me pin it down and be certain of that. These are probably best for a "woman of a certain age" combined with those sitautions where you want to have a book in hand but must be capable of putting it down at a moment's notice. In other words, this would be perfect while standing in line at the DMV (which, come to think of it, she doesn't write about despite it being a place rife with comedic potential). Obviously not my favorite read of the month but others have found it hysterically funny so perhaps we just don't share the same sense of humor.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Challenge

Do you love non-fiction? I do. I never used to read it but it's become quite a staple in my reading diet. Sometimes I want nothing more than a well-written memoir or the escape of a travelogue or the fascinating details of some bit of history with which I was unfamiliar. So it always pleases me to see non-fiction challenges in the reading and blogging world. And I could hardly turn down the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Reading Challenge as a result.

The Rules:

Only non-fiction books apply! These can be anything you're interested in: memoirs, history, geography, politics, religion, sports - whatever non-fiction you've put your hands on and your nose into.

Overlaps with other challenges allowed!

Post a list of choices if you want, or make it up as you go along.

Any book format is allowed.

There are four levels:

Just the Facts - Read two non-fiction books.
The Scoop - Read four non-fiction books.
The Whole Story - Read six non-fiction books.
Nothing But the Truth - Read eight (or more) non-fiction books.

The challenge will run from February 1, 2010 through February 28, 2011.


I will be going with Nothing But the Truth level as I've already completed it, not that I'll stop reading non-fiction for the year. :-)

Since Feb. 1, I have already read:

A Slant of Sun by Beth Kephart
Dog Years by Mark Doty
Inside the Postal Bus by Michael Barry
The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet
American Daughter by Elizabeth Kendall
The Bread of Angels by Stephanie Saldana
Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman
Admit One by Emmett James
Not Quite Paradise by Adele Barker
Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog by Lisa Scottoline

Popular Posts