Posted in top of the stack on March 5, 2008 | 8 Comments »
It’s 1986, and the ravenous reader is a young mother, raising her six year old son in a conventional family, living in a perfectly nice home in the suburbs. She reads The Good Mother, a first novel by Sue Miller, a tale of a young mother raising her four year old daughter. But the similarities [...]
Posted in bookish, top of the stack on March 1, 2008 | 20 Comments »
This ravenous reader has been notably absent from the stacks of late, and I apologize to any of you who may have stopped in, hoping some morsel of bookish wisdom was being passed round on a silver tray along with a cup of herbal tea and some ginger cookies.
In truth, my reading life has taken [...]
Posted in Sunday Salon, top of the stack on February 24, 2008 | 14 Comments »
I fear the Sunday Salon is running a bit late today. I’ve been in a rather domestic mood all morning (something that happens only rarely these days), busy pottering in the kitchen making brunch for us. When the Mushroom-Asparagus quiche comes out of the oven, perhaps your first bite with make up for my late [...]
Posted in top of the stack on February 23, 2008 | 16 Comments »
Take four women, one Italian castle, plenty of sunshine and wisteria blossoms, add in a month’s holiday, and stir…
Pure enchantment.
A splendid book for reading in the midst of a dreary midwestern winter, and the perfect antidote to middle aged emotional doldrums, The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim, brought a smile to my face with every [...]
Posted in top of the stack on February 12, 2008 | 8 Comments »
I managed to read one book while I was away last week, a frothy little mystery that proved quite entertaining. On What Grounds, set in the Village Blend, a historic coffeehouse in Greenich Village, pits barista Clare Cosi against an evil intruder who attacks her young assistant and has the gall to leave no clues behind, leading the [...]
Posted in Giveaways, top of the stack on January 30, 2008 | 18 Comments »
some time ago, in one of my midnight strolls through cyberspace, i chanced up a blog called Simply Wait. It’s author, Patry Francis, a cafe waitress cum novelist, wrote about writing, and about having your first book accepted for publication by one of the “big houses.” mostly, though, she wrote about life as a working woman/wife/mother. i started reading Simply [...]
Posted in short story challenge, top of the stack on January 26, 2008 | 5 Comments »
“The secret to a happy marriage,” my husband likes to tell me, “is good communication.” I was reminded of his admonition while reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, for many of these characters suffer from a grave inability to communicate.
In this collection of nine elegantly written short stories, I met people like Shoba and Shukumar, a young [...]
Posted in top of the stack on January 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
i’m so happy when the first book of the year is a really good one. and this year it is.
literacy and longing in l.a.is the most fun i’ve had reading since -well, since i don’t know when. it’s witty, it’s charming, it’s poignant, and it’s chock full of references to books.
that’s because its heroine, the [...]
