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: 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....
Book Review: The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn
Author Jeff Guinn divides The Road to Jonestown into three parts. The final third of the book deals with the Jonestown endgame, which felt most familiar to me. It’s the remaining two-thirds that was new and most interesting. If you’ve ever wondered how a demagogue...
Best Reading of 2018
I’ve decided that 2018 was my “Year of the Woman.” Themes of feminism and other various related women’s issues threaded their way through many of my choices. Plus, I read a plethora of amazing work from women authors. I love when the unintentional becomes...
Book Review: The Electric Woman by Tessa Fontaine
Tessa Fontaine runs away to join a circus sideshow after graduate school. It’s dream fulfillment, and a chance to escape the reality of her dramatically ill mother. While many daughters would refuse to leave their mother’s side, Fontaine has a more complicated...
Book Review: Vox by Christina Dalcher
Christina Dalcher writes about a woman not unlike herself in her debut novel, Vox. Her main character, Dr. Jean McClellan is a PhD nuerolinguist working on research about aphasia. Well, she formerly researched language changes after brain injury. But in Dalcher’s...
Book Review: Becoming by Michelle Obama
It isn’t easy to be the 9 zillioneth reviewer of Becoming by Michelle Obama. But here I am, wondering how I’ll make this an original and meaningful review.Let’s get the basics out of the way. I loved this book, and am especially glad I listened to the audiobook. While...
Book Review: River Queens by Alexander Watson
River Queens is the story of a voyage through America. But more than that, it’s the story of Alexander Watson, Dale Harris, their dog Doris Faye, and their boat the Betty Jane. It made me laugh, learn, and even shed a tear.Watson and Harris are landlubbers from Dallas...
Book Review: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Inspired by The Beauty Myth and by its author Naomi Wolf, I went to the gym this morning with a new set of eyes. And no makeup, my hair pulled back in a poof of raggedy curls on my head. Oh wait, that’s how I always go to the gym or the pool for my workouts. But the...
Book Review: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan
In Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, Matthew J. Sullivan introduces us to Lydia. She’s a bookseller just trying to live an uneventful life. I'm envious of her bookstore life, if not the rest of it!Sadly, one of her customers takes his own life in the store, even...
Book Review: The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz
I feel sorry for author David Lagercrantz, who wrote the fourth book in the Millennium series. The Girl in the Spider’s Web is just an okay thriller. But Lagercrantz could never live up to the trilogy created by Stieg Larsson, who died at just 50 years old. The story...
Book Review: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Mitchell wrote a genre busting book. It’s substantially historical fiction, plus buddy story and romance.
Book Review: About Time by Jack Finney
Jack Finney wrote a much-beloved time travel classic, Time and Again. These are short stories that also play with both time and place. All of them are about 20-25 pages, and perfect to dip into between books or when you just have a little reading time.As with most...
Book Review: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
Salt to the Sea is a story of refugees during World War II. It’s part of author Ruta Sepetys’ family history, and her research into real-life events is meticulous. And yet, this is a story of people, not just history. The history is the why and the how, but the people...
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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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