I love book cover art. I was scrolling through my Goodreads page recently and noticed one of my friends add Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine to their TBR list. The beautiful cover got my attention, and I bought book the next day. Sabrina & Corina is...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 90: Furia by Yamile Saied Mendez
by MHill | Oct 14, 2021 | 2021 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"Lies have short legs." That is the opening sentence of Furia by Yamile Saied Mendez. Camila Hassan says this proverb and opens a window into her double life as an Argentinian high school student by day and a Futbol player known as Furia after school. Camila has...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 89: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
by MHill | Oct 5, 2021 | 2021 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
I've had my eye on Silvia Moreno-Garcia's work over the past several years. I downloaded her first novel, Signal to Noise, on my Kindle a couple of years ago and her fourth novel, Mexican Gothic, I have seen throughout social media recently. Moreno-Garcia's work has...
Icon #12
by MHill | Aug 27, 2021 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"Don't forget, you're a full-time student and a part-time superhero." Icon told Rocket the aforementioned sentence at the beginning of Issue 12 while they were saving someone from being robbed. Rocket has been trying to manage her life of high school student,...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 85: Where Do We Go From Here-Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King Jr.
by MHill | Aug 21, 2021 | 2021 Book Reviews, Black History Month, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Nonfiction, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. This may well be mankind's last chance to choose between chaos and community." Martin Luther King's last sentence from his last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community sums up...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 3: Speech Sounds by Octavia E. Butler
by MHill | May 23, 2021 | Marion's All-Time Favorite Short Stories, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Octavia Butler, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
What if you lived in a society where speaking is a threat to the social order? Octavia Butler speculated on the aforementioned question in her Hugo Award-winning short story, Speech Sounds. I came across this story when it was discussed on the Novel Pairing Podcast....
Best Book Ever Podcast: Episode 8
by MHill | Jul 20, 2020 | Best Book Ever Podcast, Charles De Lint, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
I was invited on the Best Book Ever Podcast hosted by Julie Strauss today. We had a discussion about one of my favorite novels, Memory & Dream by Charles de Lint. Also, Julie asked about my reading philosophy and where my love of reading came from. It was an...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 45: Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
by MHill | May 24, 2020 | 2020 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"Words are free, she used to say, and she appropriated them; they were all hers." That sentence from early in the novel, Eva Luna, by Isabel Allende captures the spirit of her protagonist. Eva Luna is a spinner of tales and the stories from growing up poor on the...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 42: Face of an Angel by Denise Chavez
by MHill | Apr 18, 2020 | 2020 Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Marion's All-Time Favorite Novels, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Rereading a novel can bring different expectations from when you first read it over twenty-five years ago. This is the case with Face of An Angel by Denise Chavez. Face of an Angel tells the story of Soveida Dosamantes, a waitress at El Farol Restaurant in the...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 26: The Pearl by John Steinbeck
by MHill | Oct 6, 2019 | 2019 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
One of the most often quoted verses of biblical scripture is from the New Testament book of 1 Timothy 6:10: "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." Even if you are a non-religious person, I'm pretty sure you have heard that verse of scripture in a secular...