Queen of Angels by Greg Bear has been a book I've wanted to read for years. I've seen it at used bookstores and bought it several times intending to read the book but never get around to it until recently. Queen of Angels is an ambitious, thought-provoking...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 70: Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
by MHill | Dec 28, 2020 | 2020 Book Reviews, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Sometimes in reading a novel for the second time, you will not get the same feeling when you read it previously. This is the case for Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata. Snow Country is considered to being Kawabata's masterpiece. And for many reasons, I agree with...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 68: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carre
by MHill | Dec 24, 2020 | 2020 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
John Le Carre passed away earlier this month. I posted on social media my respects and fondness for The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, the only Le Carre novel I had read. I was going to read A Perfect Spy in honor of his death. However, I got about fifty pages into...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 50: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
by MHill | Jul 19, 2020 | 2020 Book Reviews, Black History Month, Marion's All-Time Favorite Novels, Marion's Favorite Books, Octavia Butler, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
I want to update a review from 2012 for one of my all-time favorite novels, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower is the story of Lauren Olamina, a teenager growing up in a grim LA suburb where their gated community provided a semblance of a...
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...
Book Review 140: The Little Country by Charles de Lint
by MHill | Aug 26, 2018 | 2018 Book Reviews, Charles De Lint, Marion's All-Time Favorite Novels, Marion's Favorite Books, Rereading Series
Back in the early to mid-1990's, Charles de Lint was one of two novelists I read regularly. The other novelist was Dean Koontz. I had not been a big reader at that point in my life and I can attribute the love of reading in my adult life to both of these authors. ...
Book Review 128: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
by MHill | Feb 28, 2018 | 2018 Book Reviews, Black History Month, Book Reviews, Marion's All-Time Favorite Novels, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Can a novel you read in your early 20s effect you in the same manner when you re-read it in your mid-40s? Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison gives this reviewer a split verdict to the aforementioned question. It is the story of an unnamed protagonist who leaves the...