Category Archives: Reviews by Bethany

Two Years of Reading, in Snapshots

Posted on April 5, 2019 by

So Jill and I are in the Vacaville Panera again, contemplating blogging. For a while, reviewing every book I read felt perfectly natural, but that has changed. But she had a great idea: let’s go back through all the books … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews by Bethany, Snapshots, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A Review of Bill Buford’s Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as a Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany

Posted on January 5, 2019 by

As food memoirs go, this is a good one. The premise is that New Yorker staff writer Bill Buford “accidentally” invited celebrity chef Mario Batali to a dinner party at his home in 2002 (Batali was a friend of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Bill Buford, Fascinating Cultural Artifacts, Nonfiction - Food and Cooking, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Memoir/Biography, Reviews by Bethany, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A Review of Avi’s The Button War

Posted on June 30, 2018 by

Summer is here and I’m reading like a maniac. At least half of the books I’ve read this month are for kids, since I just finished my first year teaching elementary and middle school (after ten years at the high … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Avi, Fiction - Children's, Fiction - general, Fiction - Historical, Fiction - literary, Fiction - Young Adult, Reviews by Bethany, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

A Review of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One

Posted on March 31, 2018 by

I didn’t time my review of this novel with the weekend of its film adaptation’s release on purpose. I started this book in December but put it down after a hundred pages for some reason, in spite of the fact … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernest Cline, Fiction - Dystopia, Fiction - general, Fiction - SciFi, fiction - thriller, Reviews by Bethany, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Review of Philip Pullman’s The Subtle Knife

Posted on January 27, 2018 by

This review contains what the young people call “spoilers.” Read at your own risk.  The second installment in this trilogy is my favorite, I think. In this book – which is also the shortest of the three – we learn … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Fiction - Children's, Fiction - Fantasy, Fiction - general, Fiction - literary, Fiction - Young Adult, Philip Pullman, Reviews by Bethany, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A Review of Lawrence Osborne’s The Forgiven

Posted on September 23, 2017 by

A month ago I could have written a fantastic review of this book – its tension, its creepiness, its unlikeable protagonist, the works. But for now, here are the basics. This is a novel about David Henniger and his wife … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Fiction - general, Fiction - literary, Fiction - Multiple Threads of Cultural Misunderstanding Lead to Tragedy, Lawrence Osborne, Reviews by Bethany, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A Brief Review of Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine

Posted on July 28, 2017 by

This is one of those “quietly good” books I keep meaning to read more of. Though only 144 pages long, it tells a complex story from five distinct points of view: one chapter each from the third-person perspective of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Fiction - general, Fiction - Historical, Fiction - literary, Julie Otsuka, Reviews by Bethany, Uncategorized | Leave a comment