Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Way back at the beginning of the year I joined Jemima Pett's SpaceTime Reading Challenge . Jemima has been hosting the SpaceTime Reading Challenge for a few years now, and I keep signing up and then losing track. If you are a SF fan, like a little mind-bending time travel now and then, or just want to find out if you do, sign up and jump in. I recommend following jemimapett.com for ideas about what to read--I've gotten a lot of good tips from her reviews (and currently have two more SF books on my reading pile)! #spacetimereads You can read any book that is from the science fiction/time-travel genres. Any sub-genres are welcome as long as they incorporate one of these genres.  Non-fiction is not included in this challenge. You don’t need a blog to participate but you do need a place to post your reviews (even one-liners) to link up. (blog, Goodreads, booklikes, shelfari, etc.) Make a goal post and link it back to Jemima's page with your goal for this challenge. Bo...

Reviewing a real classic adventure narrative!   Title: Sailing Alone Around the World Author: Joshua Slocum; read by Alan Sklar Publication Info: Tantor Media, 2006. 7hrs 45 min. Originally published 1899. Source: Library digital resources Publisher's Blurb: Joshua Slocum’s autobiographical account of his solo trip around the world is one of the most remarkable – and entertaining – travel narratives of all time. Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six-foot wooden sloop  Spray  in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world’s great circumnavigators – Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in maritime history for its courage, skill, and determination. Sailing Alone around the World  recounts Slocum’s wonderful adventures: hair-raising encounters with pirates off Gibraltar and savage Indi...

Title: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Author: Betty Smith. Narrated by Kate Burton Publication info: 2005 Harper Audio. Original publication 1943 by Harper & Brothers, 443 pages. Source: Library digital resources Goodreads Blurb: The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich mom...

A couple of weeks ago I was looking for something to listen to, and noticed that Overdrive was announcing it was Banned Books Week, and had a separate section for books that had been banned. I leafed through, being taken aback at some of the books people have seen fit to object to, and noticed this book. I could tell it was about lesbian teens, though I was a bit slow to register that it was published in 1982, making it something of a classic. Title: Annie On My Mind Author: Nancy Garden; read by Rebecca Lowman Publisher: Listening Library, 2008. Original, Farrar Strous Girroux, 1982 (234 pages). Source: Library digital resources Blurb (from Goodreads): This groundbreaking book is the story of two teenage girls whose friendship blossoms into love and who, despite pressures from family and school that threaten their relationship, promise to be true to each other and their feelings. The book has been banned from many school libraries and publicly burned in Kansas City. Of the author...

  Title: The Martian Chronicles Author:  Ray Bradbury; read by Stephen Hoye Publisher: Blackstone Audio, 2009. Original stories published between 1947 and about 1951. Source: Digital library Publisher's Blurb: There were a lot of these to chose from, since there are dozens of editions of the book out. I share here the one that goes with the Blackstone Audio version: In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster enthralls, delights, and challenges us with his vision, starkly and stunningly exposing our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.  
 My Review:   I think I have to start with Bradbury's own take on the book, from the introduction to the audio book. He describes the stories as not really science fiction, or about Mars, but rather fables or parables, the author's exploration of humanity. Certainly the prose is lush and at times the stories are pointed. ...