Welcome!
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t reading at least one book. I devour them, make time for them, hunt for bargains, and love to talk with other readers like you.
When I was trying to sum up my favorite 2016 reads, I realized I read mostly in three categories: books I learn from, books I use to relax, and books that are about resisting patriarchy, racism, and the status quo. So, that’s how I’m organizing my blog posts here. (I hope you’ll check out my favorite 2017 and 2018 reads also.)
I’m also the author of the Amazon best-selling Kick Pain in the Kitchen, about how to find holistic pain relief.
Find me at Goodreads and on the Litsy app as BarbaraTheBibliophage!
Book Review: The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff
Pam Jenoff writes the story of two women trying to survive Hitler’s Europe. Noa and Astrid have absolutely nothing in common. They’ve both had troubles with men, compounded by the deadly prejudices of the time. In order to survive, they’ve team up as aerialists in a...
Book Review: Daughter of Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
Daughter of Moloka’i is the sequel to Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. And, unlike the first book, very little of it takes place on Moloka’i. I can’t discuss the plot without revealing at least one spoiler from the first book. So if you haven’t read Moloka’i, I’d suggest...
Book Review: Thanks, Obama by David Litt
Native New Yorker David Litt was politically aware enough in college to volunteer for Barack Obama’s first Presidential campaign. Then he moved to Washington, D.C. and tried to get a job after graduation. After an internship, he networked himself into Obama’s White...
Book Review: Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
A biographer, a wise woman, a wife, a daughter, and an explorer form the core of Red Clocks, from author Leni Zumas. They seem to have only one thing in common—being women living in a country where reproductive rights are more and more limited.Susan is a wife and...
Book Review: Forensics by Val McDermid
Val McDermid covers exactly what’s in the subtitle for this book, and much more. The full title is Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime. Expect plenty about each sub-topic.In Forensics, she explains many (if not all) of the common ways...
Book Review: Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
Moloka’i is both beautiful and bittersweet. Alan Brennert shows us the human side of institutional health care. In the late 19th century, Hawaii was still a sovereign country. But the haole (non-Hawaiians) were making their way there. And bringing their diseases, most...
Book Review: Angel Time by Anne Rice
In Angel Time, Anne Rice tells the story of a present-day hit man, a former parochial school student. The narrator is his guardian angel. After learning about his depressing descent from down on his luck school boy to a life of crime, we meet said angel. And together...
Book Review: Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore
Christopher Moore is a master of the humor-filled, historical fiction with a fantasy twist novel. How’s that for a sub-genre? Sacré Bleu was my favorite read this January. BTW, you should know that the French expression “sacrebleu” is used to convey surprise,...
Book Review: Murder in the Marais by Cara Black (Aimee Leduc #1)
This was my first venture into the Aimée Leduc series from Cara Black. So, I started with book one and took an armchair trip to the neighborhood in Paris called the Marais. Aimée is the owner of a small private detective agency in Paris. She’s the daughter of a French...
Book Review: The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory
The Other Queen is everything I want in a Philippa Gregory book. Massive amounts of political scheming, told from three viewpoints, and details, details, details. I loved it. Gregory tells the story of when Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in Elizabethan England in...
Book Review: Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill
Nikita Gill puts an adult, mostly feminist spin on common fairytales and legends in her collection, titled Fierce Fairytales: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul. For me, though, the content wasn’t as stirring as promised.Gill uses various points of view, including...
Book Review: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory is an examination of death and the so-called death industry from Caitlin Doughty. By death industry she means how funeral homes, mortuaries, crematories, medical facilities and government agencies like...
Book Review: What We Do Now, Essays by Various Authors
I bought this compilation of essays, edited by Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians, shortly after the 2016 elections. I was wondering just what the title says, “what do we do know?” And, then I put the book on my shelf because I was feeling too many raw emotions....
Book Review: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens covers a lot of ground in its 400+ pages, and author Yuval Noah Harari makes it readable. The title’s subheading, “A Brief History of Humankind,” is telling but incomplete. There’s much more than just history here. At the same time, Harari makes clear in the...
Book Review: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
In Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver mixes two story lines chapter by chapter. The first focuses on Willa Knox and her present-day family. The second focuses on Thatcher Greenwood, who lived in the same neighborhood as Willa in the 1870s. Both are faced with...
Book Review: Paris Time Capsule by Ella Carey
Like imaginative authors everywhere, Ella Carey based Paris Time Capsule on a real-life occurrence. In late 2010, a Paris apartment that had been uninhabited for 70 years was opened after its owner’s death. She had left Paris during World War II and never returned....
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I will definitely recommend Kick Pain in the Kitchen to my patients: Those who are looking to avoid pharmaceutical treatment and those who want to combine western medicine with alternative therapies.
Jane A. Swartz
ARNP, MSN, Rheumatology Nurse Practitioner
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