I was so excited to read this book. It sounded tailor made for me and I’ve followed the author online for a long time. I love the history of objects and reading about our personal connections to them. I just didn’t really enjoy it. I wish she had decided to write a memoir about her … Continue reading
Author Archives: Rachel
Recipe for Disaster: 40 Superstar Stories of Sustenance and Survival edited by Alison Riley
Honestly, this was kind of a disaster of a book. It felt like it was cobbled together at the last minute and was written largely by people who didn’t seem to know what the theme was or care about it at all. One or two essays were okay but largely they were a bunch of … Continue reading
Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool by Clara Parkes
Vanishing Fleece was fairly interesting but I can’t get over that she built a career of writing about yarn but never, until this book, knew much about how it was made? I still don’t know how much she knows, a lot of the details are a little glossed over—she talks about things like ply, staple … Continue reading
Books I read in November
Brief thoughts on all the books I read this month! Continue reading
Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family by Rabia Chaudry
I didn’t read her first book until right before I picked this one up. As I read it, I thought she really should have made it a memoir about how she became obsessed with Adan Syed during what seemed like many low points during her life. She talked a lot about her personal life in … Continue reading
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
I will say up front I never really watched Friends, have no real interest in Friends, and even when it was first airing I felt it was an oddly retrograde throwback show to an imaginary all-white NYC where no one really had to work to live. That said, it was impossible to avoid reading about … Continue reading
What I Read in October
Brief thoughts on all the books I read this month! Continue reading
Weaving Rag Rugs: A Women’s Craft in Western Maryland by Geraldine Niva Johnson
I enjoyed Weaving Rag Rugs, I think it was her PhD thesis, but I never felt like she answered why rag rug weaving has/had such a stronghold in this particular county in Maryland. Or if it’s not more popular there than in other areas, why chose to focus here? I did get a feel of … Continue reading
What I read in September
Brief thoughts on all the books I read this month! Continue reading
The Year of the Horses: A Memoir by Courtney Maum
I was never a horse girl but I love reading books about people and niche interests. I felt like this was a little flat. Despite her talks about therapy, I felt like there was very little introspection. How did she grow up to be a fatphobic woman with an eating disorder, depression, stagnant marriage who … Continue reading