nomadreader

I'm thrilled to be judging the first match-up in the 2016 alt-ToB (Alternative Tournament of Books.) This tournament stemmed from the Tournament of Books discussion group on GoodReads , which is not affiliated with The Morning News Tournament of Books which will happen in March. Please join us over at Goodreads to discuss all the match-ups , and follow along with the alt-ToB brackets . vs. When I saw I was tasked with comparing The Story of My Teeth and Under the Udala Trees , my first thought was to try to find the similarities between them. Both are the second work of fiction by a young woman whose first work of fiction received acclaim. (Luiselli’s first novel Faces in the Crowd was a National Book Award 5 Under 35 pick, while Okparanta’s story collection Happiness, Like Water was a Young Lions Fiction nominee.) Both women were born in other countries but now live in the United States. Both women set this book in the country of their birth. After reading them, I’...

Happy Sunday! I'm sitting by the window watching the rain. Like much of the U.S., we're experiencing unseasonably hot temperatures. We're in the middle of getting three inches of rain this weekend, and I find myself wishing it were snow instead. Despite the weather, I am loving all of the Best of the Year book lists that keep popping up. One of my favorite events of the year is the Tournament of Books, and this week they released the longlist . I was devastated to see two of my favorite reads of 2015 ( The Shore  by Sara Taylor and Girl at War  by Sara Novic ) left off. I'm participating in a new event: the Alt-ToB in the Tournament of Books group on GoodReads . I'm judging the first match-up of the first round: The Story of My Teeth  by Valeria Luiselli and Under the Udala Trees  by Chinelo Okparanta. It's been so much fun to read and write a Tournament of Books verdict, but it is a challenge for me to not talk about these two books with anyone. I haven...

I've been a Library Thing devotee for several years now. Recently, though, I decided to give GoodReads another chance. I'm not abandoning LibraryThing, but there are a few things I like better about GoodReads. (Note: Florinda has written about her love of LibraryThing at The 3R's Blog, and I won't be going into the level of detail she is. Similarly, Wallace has written about how to get the most out of GoodReads at Unputdownables . It's an excellent guide if you're unfamiliar with the site.) My focus today comes down to the simple question: what works best for me to organize my books and discover new books? LibraryThing: How I love thee... A co-worker and I were chatting about GoodReads a few months ago, and I mentioned I'm a LibraryThing user instead. Her response: of course you are, you're a librarian, but non-librarians prefer GoodReads. I'm willing to concede part of that point, but I think most of it comes down to what level of cataloging...