I can’t get away from references to James Baldwin. It seems he is a writer’s writer. And, unless there was a short story or essay somewhere along the line, I have never read him. Until now. I started with Giovanni’s Room simply because we were reading it for book club. Perhaps I should have read…
I consider the Fourth of July as a second-tier holiday, as far as the depth and breadth of the festivities go for me. For the past few years I have been in Syracuse, NY with my husband’s sisters and parents and their families, donning starred and striped socks and painting the bursted-bomb air with sparklers,…
I like Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It’s a great classic and in many ways, it is right up my alley: gentle, warm, deep, encouraging, historical, full of three-dimensional characters and relationships, and challenging ideas. It is a little vignette-y for me, but I forgive it because it feels right for the time and…
I have been out of commission since October, which is a little extreme. I attended that wonderful writing residency and finished a novel, but within weeks of returning I came down with something like the flu and destroyed my Thanksgiving season. I struggled with recovery until I decided that I had a secondary sinus infection.…
I know I’m always claiming I started a book for high school reading but never finished it. Thanks to untreated ADHD and an uncanny ability to predict stories, this is largely true. But I must have read some of these books in order to ace AP English, right? Unknown. What I do know is that…
In case you noticed, it has been over a week since my last Book a Day post. That is because I took a week off to renovate the school room. Since the school room is part of the dining room and kitchen, at the heart of our home, I thought it would be best to…
the starving artist 