With the release of her Netflix series, bestselling author and tidying guru Marie Kondo has been able to share her bold decluttering philosophy with a vast new audience. While her popularity has grown as a result, Kondo has been the focal point of a storm of not altogether receptive comments [...]
Driving south on Highway 101 in Northern California, you cross through a short tunnel just north of San Francisco and are greeted by the dramatic rise of the Golden Gate Bridge towers with The City in the background. After nearly 40 years, this view still takes my breath away and [...]
As a psychotherapist, I love any book that explores the realms of psychology, from the normal and expected responses to everyday stressors or past traumas to the extremes of psychological disfunction and sociopathy. In Blog # 18, More Biblio-Books, I described that the protagonist in Stephanie Butland’s The Lost for [...]
Young Adult Fiction can be hard to define. It loosely applies to books that would be read by teens, and yet the age span from 12 to 19 is developmentally wide and vast. Books that appeal to an older teen may not be appropriate for a younger teen. The content [...]
This will be my third blog on Women’s fiction. (Blog #7: Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Blog #15: More Girls Fun) It is my genre, after all! And it is a large one; the more I explore, the more writers I find to enjoy, admire, and be inspired [...]
In Blog #4: Books About Books, I described my love of book-related books. The words book, bookstore, book club, library, bibliophile and any other reference of the kind will easily grab me and pull me in, and I’m always on the lookout for new material. In my quest, I came [...]
I have long felt that well-written memoirs can make for some of the most powerful narratives. The baring of one’s soul, the vulnerability, the courage, and the heartfelt expression of our often painful and messy human condition is inspiring to me. That said, I have to admit that it isn’t [...]
Poetry has always had the ability to communicate things for me in a deeper way than any prose could achieve. And while I’ve never been an avid follower of poetry, there have been several poets who have been particularly significant to me. The first was Khalil Gibran and came in [...]
In Blog #7: Girls Just Want To Have Fun, I promised to revisit the Women’s Fiction genre, probably numerous times. I love reading about the complexities of women’s relationships with the many common themes that touch all of our lives: friendship, lovers, marriage and divorce, secrets and lies, betrayal, loss [...]
Throughout my twenties and early thirties, my “go-to” fiction genre was Thriller. I read Robert Ludlum, Ken Follett, Tom Clancy, and John le Carré. (And loved the movies that followed many of these novels.) Maybe it was an obsession with spies or conspiracies. Or simply the adrenaline rush. But, other [...]
