Top Ten Books Tackling Tough Issues

Maus: A Survivor's Tale

The Holocaust

Reading Lolita in Tehran

A teacher dares to start a book club for women in Tehran.

No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning

Author Abigail Thernstrom takes a close look at the racial gaps that still exist in learning and proposes causes and solutions.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

A hurricane unnerves a town.

Columbine by Dave Cullen

How did two boys become killers?

The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams

Athletics is a way out for many in poverty.

But is it really?

Material World: A Global Family Portrait

What things does an average family in America have in their home?

How about in Egypt? Denmark?

Peter Menzel finds an average family in countries around the world

and photographs their possessions.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

What is wrong with our world?

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Ehrenreich explores what life is like for those earning minimum wage in America.

Bowling Alone

What happened to the sense of community in America?

What are your favorite top ten books tackling tough issues?

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Why do all the good books arrive at once?!

I have no idea what to read next. Advise me, please!

Here's what is sitting on my nightstand:

 

 

What are you reading today?!

And don't forget!

The July Giveaway here at Readerbuzz is...

...a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

And it's international!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between! D This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!

I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme Book Journey loves to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. Book Journey offers a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment telling me how many you visited.

Top Ten Books That Should Be Required Reading for Teens

For many people, the last time they pick up a book is in high school or college.

So I want that book to be drop-dead amazing.

I've always had the notion that it would be fun for kids in high school or college to spend a semester reading children's picture books. Children's picture books are surprisingly rich. And it would set kids up in a mighty fine fashion for reading aloud to their own children in a few years.

So here are ten picture books that might work for teens. (If you have other suggestions for this category, I'd love to hear them.)

How about...

The Empty Pot

The Little House

Rotten Island

The Giving Tree

Window

Tadpole's Promise

The Other Side

The Big Orange Splot

Martin's Big Words

First the Egg

14 Cows for America

What would you have on your list?

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Sunday Salon: In Which I Travel to Bhutan and the North Pole, with a Stop at a Convenience Store in Brooklyn

 Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli

What's going on when a country bravely tosses the idea of measuring a society's worth in GNP and seizes upon attempting to measure it instead with Gross National Happiness? I've always been curious about Bhutan. Sadly, Napoli reveals in this book that the food in Bhutan is abysmal, but in every other way Napoli finds a small Eden, epitomized by the fact that Bhutan is a country where the king's phone number is actually published in the local phone book.

(Side note:  Just when I was feeling all gooey and lovey-dovey about Bhutan, I went to a family get-together last week and my nephew started telling me the sad story of a new fellow at his job who is a refugee from Bhutan, fleeing Bhutan because of persecution there for his religious beliefs. So you might wait a bit before you start packing....) 

The Magnetic North by Sara Wheeler

Wheeler takes her readers places no one has been, places no one really wants to go except via books. This time, she guides us through the frozen north, the lands and waters north of the Arctic Circle. She's an ideal guide, one who seeks out all the coolest (in both senses of the word) spots and who finds all the best of the Arctic stories, and relates her tales with a delightfully literate vocabulary.

My Korean Deli by Ben Ryder Howe

There are books I read that make me wish I were as good at reviewing books as I am at reading them. This book is one of these. 

Howe is the WASP-iest of WASPs, with Pilgrim ancestors who came over on the first boats, and an A+ education. He's an editor at the Paris Review which, to the five of us who continue to salute the written word, is up there with the Supreme Ruler of the Western World. He's married to a woman who is a new immigrant, with that killer drive which leaves the rest of us watching her zip by as we watch by the edge of the highway, dazzled and dazed.

The story is really the story of America today told with both humor and sadness, an America sitting proudly on its crumbling throne, an America where new immigrants vigorously race around to throw together businesses that fail nevertheless, where intelligence doesn't work, where energy doesn't work, where nothing works, where everyone is left sad and bewildered. All in a humorous way.

What are you reading today? 

And don't forget!

The July Giveaway here at Readerbuzz is...

...a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

And it's international!

What is the Sunday Salon?

Imagine some university library's vast reading room.

It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in.

They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them,

and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go.

Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and

compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual.

Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon

get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read.

And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs.

Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon,

an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities

 and fall into a good book. 

Click here to join the Salon.

Scene of the Blog

I'm thrilled to be featured this week on Scene of the Blog!

Scene of the Blog is a weekly feature on

Kittling: Books that spotlights

the creative spaces of book bloggers around the world.
Please stop by and take a look
at my beautiful Meditation Room
where I do my blogging!

And don't forget!

The July Giveaway here at Readerbuzz is...

...a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

And it's international!

Top Ten Twenty-Seven Authors I'd Love to Meet

Here's a rather long list of authors I'd love to meet,

in no particular order:

Robert Pirsig

Mark Twain

Dr. Seuss

E. B. White

William Carlos Williams

Michael Dirda

Nancy Pearl

William Steig

Herman Hesse

Haruki Murakami

Anne Lamott

Terry Pratchett

Bill Bryson

Ray Bradbury

Billy Collins

Tracy Kidder

Truman Capote

Esme Raji Codell

Madeline L'Engle

Shel Silverstein

Roald Dahl

C. S. Lewis

Chris Van Allsburg

Bill Martin, Jr.

Cynthia Rylant

J. R. R. Tolkien

Mark Salzman

What authors would you love to meet?

******************************************************

I'm happy to announce that tomorrow

my blog will be featured on Scene of the Blog,

a weekly feature at Kittling: Books!

******************************************************

And don't forget!

The July Giveaway here at Readerbuzz is...

...a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

And it's international!

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Literary Blog Hop: In Which I Ponder My Favorite Literary Device

Welcome to the Literary Blog Hop

hosted by The Blue Bookcase!

This week's prompt:
What is one of your favorite literary devices?
Why do you like it?
Provide a definition and an awesome example.

Shhhhh! Here's a Cheat Sheet for this week's Hop if your memory, like mine, needs refreshing....

My reply to this week's prompt:

Oh dear, oh dear,

how can I possibly choose a favorite literary device?
Similes are like fresh loaves of French bread while
metaphors are Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream.
Alliterations are always awesome.
I will break personification's heart if I don't pick him as my favorite.
And I adore hyperbole more than life itself!!!
Paradox is definitely my favorite literary device,
except that it is also the literary device I most despise....

How about you?
What's your favorite literary device?

And don't forget!

The July Giveaway here at Readerbuzz is...

...a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

And it's international!

This blog hop is open to blogs

that primarily feature book reviews of literary fiction,

classic literature, and general literary discussion.

Top Ten Rebels in Literature

Top Ten Rebels in Literature

Asher Lev

Meg Murray

Holden Caulfield

Owen Meany

Scarlett O'Hara

The Little Prince

Stargirl

Anne of Green Gables

Pippi Longstocking

Huckleberry Finn

Muriel Pritchett

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

Sunday Salon: I Have Trouble Reading Children's Books

I'm trying to read all 1001 books.

That sounds like a lot of books.

Until you are told that I'm trying to read 1001 children's books.

That sounds easier.

It isn't.

I've had to do some ridiculous things.

I can't find many of the remaining books

at any of the three library systems I belong to.

I've had to resort to buying these online.

Some of them aren't even available in English!

I've had to read one book in German, for example.

Do you know how long it takes me to read an entire book in German?

I don't even know German!

One book was only available in Japanese!

Can't even use Google translator there!

How about this book from the 1001 list?

The Quinkins.

There is one used copy of The Quinkins out there for sale.

$113.56.

And Marlaguette.

One used copy for $94.87.

And it's in French.



(Okay. Enough ranting about the difficulties of this task.

That's the fun of it: the difficulties of this task.)

Here's the bottom line:

My total number of books read:  432 of 1001!

Only 568 books to go!

I will press on.

Anyone have any good ideas for me?

How can I acquire copies of these 568 books

without exhausting my bank account?
And what about the books that aren't in English?
Any thoughts?

Here's what I finished this week:

What is the Sunday Salon?

Imagine some university library's vast reading room.

It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in.

They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them,

and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go.

Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and

compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual.

Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon

get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read.

And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs.

Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon,

an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities

 and fall into a good book. 

Click here to join the Salon.

And don't forget!

The July Giveaway here at Readerbuzz is...

...a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

And it's international!

Readerbuzz's July Giveaway: A $25 Amazon Gift Card!! (International!)

I'm happy to announce

Readerbuzz's July Giveaway!

Win an Amazon Gift Card!

(This is open to bloggers anywhere Amazon can ship!)

Rules for the Readerbuzz's July Giveaway are simple:

(1) You must follow me.

(2) You must leave a comment here

that expresses your interest in this giveaway

and includes an e-mail address

 (posted in an elusive way to thwart the wicked).

BONUS:
If you really, really want to win this giftcard,

you are welcome to receive extra entries by:

Following me at Twitter

and leaving a comment +1 

Befriending me at Goodreads

and leaving a comment +1

Befriending me at Facebook

and leaving a comment +1

I will leave this giveaway open until July 31st.

Good luck!

Readerbuzz's July Giveaway is scheduled to begin on July 1st at 12:01 am EST

and end on July 31st at 11:59 pm EST.


And if you'd like to meet other book bloggers, join me at
two of my favorite weekly events:
Crazy for Books' Book Blogger Hop
and
Parajunkie's Feature and Follow Friday!



Here is the question posed:
“What keeps you reading beyond the first few pages of a book,
and what makes you want to stop reading a book
and put it back on the shelf?“


My reply:
I have no idea what keeps me reading.
Magic, I guess.