In my last blog, High School Reunion, I talked about my favorite high school English teacher and the impact he had on my reading and writing. He was one of many wonderful teachers I had from grade school through graduate school, all of whom influenced me in different but important [...]

In my last blog, Harry Potter, I talked about two fantasy series I remembered from my teen years: Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy and C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. That led me to think about other books I’d read in high school, and [...]

In my last blog, Child’s Play, I talked about Children’s books, a subject I know I’ll return to here in the future. This week I want to jump ahead a few years to Harry Potter. My younger son was eight when the first book was published and he is still [...]

I know this won’t be my first blog on this topic. I love Children’s Books. Especially picture books. One of my favorite rituals with my sons when they were young was our weekly trip to the library, and the daily reading of those books curled up together on the sofa. [...]

I’ve mentioned several books in my earlier posts that I have seen on “Gothic Novels” lists: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, Jane Eyre by Charlette Bronte and The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. Yet I recently had [...]

There are those that eschew historical fiction; they say that if you want to learn about history, read non-fiction history books. And despite the argument by some that “non-fiction history books” may at times be an oxymoron, I understand their reasoning. Fictionalizing history seems irrational. If you want to know [...]

Sometimes I just need to escape. Maybe life has been especially stressful or I’m feeling lonely or even lazy. All I want is to curl up with a book that is fun and even sometimes familiar. And for me, this generally means a female writer with a female protagonist and [...]

In my last blog, I admitted unabashedly that I’m a Colin Firth fan. I’ve seen most of his films, and quite a few several times! I admire his versatility, his range and the combination of subtlety and depth that he brings to his characters. He has the ability to convey [...]

I recently devoured Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible. It was fun, fast paced, and a wonderful re-visiting of one of my favorite novels, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I have a big confession to make before I go any further. I came to Jane Austen late in the game. And in a [...]

At the end of Blog #2: Who remembers Trixie Belden, I mentioned two books that came to mind as inspiring me to travel. Last time I talked about Michener’s The Drifter’s. The other was Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind. It is one of my all-time favorite books. [...]