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I’ve been known to pick up a book based simply on a really kick-ass title.   I’ve also been known to pick up a book based on a really odd or cringe-worthy title.  But I’ve never seen so many odd, bad and nudge-nudge-wink-wink titles as these:

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Why I picked it up: Because it was 50% off during a bookshop bankruptcy sale.
This is a book for our times.  I mean that this book wouldn’t have made any sense at all 7 years ago. It’s not just the references to Bones and Battlestar Galatica.  This book was written to be read on a [...]

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Classic books that I haven’t read and the only guilt I feel is that I don’t feel more guilty about not having read them (although life is long so who knows):

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: It’s 1,400 pages long. I would need to take a sabbatical from work to finish it in a [...]

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So back to Entertainment Weekly’s list of “New Classics” — the movies, books, music and other cultural flim-flam that might (or might not) outlast our own brief sojourn here on Earth.
And while I thought the music list was palatable — strange, but palatable — I can say no such nice things about the Top 100 [...]

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Why I picked it up: That’s a great title. Seriously. That may be in the top five best fiction titles ever (at least in my library).  It’s from Ovid.
Lots of people are calling this a coming-of-age story.  Fair enough.  I love coming-of-age stories — good ones that is.  Catcher in the Rye is still read [...]

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I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max
The Next Millionaires by Paul Zane Pilzer
Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
The Dogs of Babel: A Novel by Carolyn Parkhurst

I should post photos of who was reading what but honestly, if you read the book synopses, you can stereotype them pretty accurately.

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June 16. Just another pretty spring day in Dublin.
Ah, but ….
Today is the day (minus one hundred and four years) that Stephan Daedalus leaves his tower by the sea and Leopold Bloom the warmth of his bed to engage in their epic journey around the city.

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Make sure to tune into Jezebel’s Fine Lines on Friday (usually around 3:00-ish) when they will discuss one of the greatest, most wonderful books ever. I am referring, of course, to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.
How great was it? Go now and get a copy. It’s a quick read. But [...]

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There’s the old saying about you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family. You know who else you can’t pick? Your co-workers. And honestly, it’s even worse than your family. Your family you can ignore for days on end. You don’t have to answer your Mom’s emails [...]

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The Mennonite Historical Bulletin has compiled an “Essential Mennonite History Reading List” listing 41 books which
all Mennonites should read in order to be sufficiently knowledgeable about the many facets of our church history.
Daunting but fair enough. Confession: I’ve read 3 and dabbled in a fourth. (No one reads the entire Martyr’s Mirror. I [...]

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