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Does anyone start to use the word "grok" ("Stranger in a Strange Land") and then catch yourself? It always makes me laugh when someone else slips and says it. It's such a perfect word - a subtlety of meaning that goes beyond "understand." Though I guess the Brits have it made with "suss" - a...

I liked Jane Eyre, actually, and probably read that one three or four times. You may just need to be in the mood for it, though. I would give it another go. I have a much lower tolerance for Dickens, overall. I couldn't finish Great Expectations, and I first tried to read it when I was in my...

I just thought the author was too detached from the main character in Memoirs of a Geisha - that happens sometimes when men write about women, I've noticed. You saw what she saw and learned what she did, but never felt what she felt. She was at arm's length throughout the entire book, even...

Scout from "To Kill a Mockingbird".

I was just thinking about Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. In the book, Vonnegut invents a religion and defines it. Part of the religion involves the "karass," which is a group of two or more people who are assigned to one another for the purpose of performing some sort of life task. Oftentimes...

Sorry, for anyone who was there and caught my error. The Remainders were featured at the Texas Book Festival in 2003. Kinky Friedman was 2002.

I didn't meet her, but I had some back and forth email correspondence with Anne Rice over an Amazon issue we were both experiencing. She was gracious, pleasant, very normal, and very nice. I don't know what I was expecting, but she definitely surpassed it. I really, really liked her. I was at...

There's a book signing group on Yahoo with lots of tips: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Booksigners/

If we're delving into the classics, I would have to say Tess of the D'Urbervilles wins for tiresome melodrama, and (don't hit me, but...) all of Charles Dickens with the exception of Tale of Two Cities, the only book he wrote that I was ever able to finish. The blinding tedium of his excessive...

I just finished A Girl Can Stand Up by Leslie Marshall. It's about a six-year old girl whose parents die in a freak accident in an amusement park. She's then raised by two uncles, one of whom is a transvestite. The humor is very droll, and the characters are all weirdly wonderful. Some reviewers...

I have a non-reading son I've tried everything on. The one book that worked was my favorite from childhood: "Loretta Mason Potts" by Mary Chase. It was written 50 years ago, and was out of print until recently. It's extremely expensive, especially for a children's book, so I imagine your first...

If you want funny/poignant, read anything by Sarah Bird. "Yakota Officer's Club" is, in my opinion, her absolute best followed by "The Mommy Club."

"Naked" by David Sedaris is SCREAMINGLY funny. There was one chapter it took me two days to finish because I couldn't see the pages through my tears. As soon as I wiped my eyes, I was off again laughing myself blind. Plus, I had to keep quoting portions of the book to my husband (thank goodness...

I've posed this question a number of times in various forums, and no one has ever given me a satisfactory reply. I can always tell when a news article (or anything, for that matter) is written by a British writer because I see "have got." As an American, I learned that the following is...

On the topic of spelling, I got this from a friend recently. It's kind of fun: I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a...

I get irritated with spelling, grammatical, punctuation, and shift key typing issues (like not capitalizing anything, or hitting all caps) on the Internet, but what's really disturbing is the fact that these things pop up frequently in published works. How many reviews have you read on...

"Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn" by Nell Gavin is historical fiction - but it's different because it has Anne Boleyn reviewing her past lives in an effort to come to terms with Henry VIII and forgive him. I wouldn't recommend it for people who prefer formula fiction though (standard...

I found a book, "Spite Hall" by Jack Mauro that's really funny - almost in a P. G. Wodehouse kind of way (though not that extreme). If you like a clever turn of phrase, this author has a way with words and descriptions that will have you howling.