Tag: English

• Book Review: Death on the Marlow Belle by Robert Thorogood

  In Death on the Marlow Belle (Poisoned Pen Press, September, 2025) this fourth installment of The Marlow Murder Club, a cozy murder mystery series, author Robert Thorogood has returned us to Marlow, a very real town located on the Thames River thirty miles from London. This is brilliant news for all of Thorogood’s fans, as…

  michardillo

  June 16, 2025

  books

  Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, book-review, books, British, Columbia Theatre Players, community theatre, cozy mystery, death, Death Comes to Marlow, Death in Paradise, Death on the Marlow Belle, Downton Abbey, England, English, fiction, Goodreads, James Bond, Kindle, Lady Rosalind, London, Lord Grantham, Marlow, Miss Moneypenny, mystery, NetGalley, novel, Oscar Wilde, PBS Masterpiece, Poisoned Pen Press, reading, Richard Osman, River Thames, Samantha Bond, Ten Little Indians, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Marlow Murder Club, The Queen of Poisons, The Thursday Murder Club, theater, theatre, writer, writing

• Book Review: Dear Miss Lake by AJ Pearce

  I have a love-hate relationship with book series. Part of me loves the continuity, the bond established between the reader and the characters from book to book, the story taking me on a journey and coming back full-circle. But, I also hate when the series ends. To me, after I’ve invested so much time with…

  michardillo

  June 11, 2025

  books

  AJ Pearce, Blitz, book series, book-review, books, British, Dear Miss Lake, Dear Mrs. Bird, Edelweiss, England, English, fiction, Kate Messner, Kindle, library, literature, London, Maryland, Mrs. Porter Calling, mystery, novel, reading, Scholastic Press, Scribner, Silver Jaguar, social media, teacher, teaching, writer, writing, WWII, Yours Cheerfully

• Book Review: Life Skills by Katie Fforde

  Of the 46 or so novels written by British author Katie Fforde, Life Skills is my 6th. Life Skills was published in 1999 and has been reprinted several times since, so I chose this light, breezy rom-com from Fforde’s back list. Quite a few of her novels have been adapted for German TV, but I…

  michardillo

  March 22, 2025

  books, Essay

  book-review, books, canal cruise, cooking, crew member, English, fiction, hotel boat, Katie Fforde, Kindle, Life Skills, literature, London, novel, reading, rom-com, romcom

• Book Review: The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods (a/k/a Evie Gaughan)

  The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris is my second book by Evie Woods, although I am a bit confused whether #2 is the chicken or the egg. I loved her first (?) book, The Lost Bookshop. It was the perfect blend of a dual timeline, half contemporary and half historical, with a dash of…

  michardillo

  January 11, 2025

  books, Essay, food

  afternoon tea, Ann Napolitano, bakery, baking, book-review, books, bookstore, British, chocolate, coming of age, Compiegne, contemporary-fiction, cystic fibrosis, Dear Edward, dual timeline, English, Evie Gaughan, Evie Woods, fiction, food, France, Goodreads, grief, Harper 360, HarperCollins, hello-beautiful, historical fiction, Ireland, Irish, literature, magical realism, NetGalley, novel, Oprah, Paris, reading, Romance, tea, The Lost Bookshop, The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris, Within Arm’s Reach, writing

• Book Review: Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford

  A book dominated by the daily bakes of a British pensioner? Sign. Me. Up. I just finished reading Olivia Ford’s debut novel, Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame. A teacher colleague of mine—an avid reader and all around dear friend—gave me two books for Christmas and when I opened the package, this one was on top.…

  michardillo

  December 28, 2024

  books, Essay, food

  baking, book-review, books, British, British pastries, chocolate, cooking, debut novel, English, family, fiction, GBBO, Great British Baking Show, literature, middle school, Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame, Netflix, novel, Olivia Ford, reading, social media, tea, writer

• Book Review: A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Book #1 in the Countess of Harleigh Mystery Series)

  I recently grabbed a book off of the new mysteries shelf at my local library and knew almost immediately that I was missing quite a bit of backstory, only to realize I was starting with book #7 of a series. I enjoyed An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder – albeit without the backstory…

  michardillo

  November 5, 2024

  books, Essay

  A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder, An Art Lover’s Guide to Paris and Murder, book-review, books, British, Countess of Harleigh, cozy mystery, death, Dianne Freeman, Downton Abbey, England, English, family, fiction, Libby, library, literature, MCPL, mystery, novel, parenting, reading, social media, vacation, Victorian Era

• Book Review: A Chest Full of Words by Rebecca Gugger and Simon Rothlisberger, translated from the German by Tim Mohr

  As an English and literature teacher for nearly 20 years, I have coached (and in some cases, coaxed) middle schoolers on essay writing, including the use of descriptive writing, more specifically the use of adjectives and adverbs. One method I used was to read with them an example of good descriptive writing, starting with Chapter…

  michardillo

  September 23, 2024

  books, Essay

  A Chest Full of Words, Annie Dillard, baking, book-review, books, British, chicken, cooking, English, essays, food, language arts, Laurie Colwin, library, literature, middle school, More Home Cooking, NetGalley, nonfiction, NorthSouth Books Inc., Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, reading, Rebecca Gugger, Simon Rothlisberger, teacher, teaching, The Metamorphisis, Tim Mohr, translated from the German, vocabulary, writer, writing

• Book Review: Mrs. Porter Calling by A. J. Pearce

  One of my favorite books of 2019 was Dear Mrs. Bird by A. J. Pearce, which I read just before the lockdown and the horrible pandemic thing ensued. I love that book so much that my family finally did an intervention and asked me to STOP talking about Emmy and her friends. Since then, I’ve…

  michardillo

  May 14, 2023

  Essay

  A J Pearce, ARC, book-review, books, British, Cheerfully, Dear Mrs. Bird, death, dog, Emmy Lake, England, English, fiction, grief, Kindle, literature, London, NetGalley, novel, reading, writer, writing, WWII, Yours Mrs. Porter Calling

• Color My World

  Recently I was reading the latest issue of Writer’s Digest magazine when I came across an interview with Drew Daywalt, who was featured on the cover. I had not yet heard of him (sorry, Mr. Daywalt) but the image of his two children’s books on the first page of the article caught my eye so…

  michardillo

  January 10, 2016

  Essay

  Catholic school, children’s literature, chocolates, crayons, Drew Daywalt, Emerson College, English, Forrest Gump, Hollywood, Howard Gardner, John Mayer, language arts, Life is like a box of chocolates, literature, middle school, multiple intelligences, Nerdy Book Club, Oliver Jeffers, screenwriting, teaching, The Day the Crayons Quit, Tom Hanks, Writer’s Digest, writing

• The Nitty Gritty of Grammar

  My eighth grade students took an English quiz on Friday. This came after a solid week of “reviewing” the basic rules of punctuation and capitalization: the comma, the period, the colon, the semicolon, the exclamation point, the question mark, the dash and the hyphen, and when to use quotation marks and italics. All of these…

  michardillo

  October 25, 2015

  Essay

  comma, eighth grade, English, exclamation point, foreign language, grammar, HSPT, italics, middle school, period, professional development, punctuation, question mark, quotation marks, semicolon, teacher