Joy Over Despair: The Gospel Found in Just Kids by Patti Smith

When Patti Smith was just a kid, with her eyes on the stars and her heart open to adventure, she met Robert Mapplethorpe: “On a simple iron bed,a boy was sleeping. He was pale and slim with massess of dark curls, lying…

Presenting: Video Book Trailer for Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

I put this video together with old photos, some new photos, and stacks and stacks of the books I read during my year of reading a book a day. Then I asked my youngest son to provide the music and voilà!

Midsomer Murder Madness in May

Searching for Self: Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

I loved Geraldine Brooks’ latest historical novel, Caleb’s Crossing. Set in mid-seventeenth century New England (Martha’s Vineyard and Cambridge, Massachusetts), Brooks uses what is known of the true story of Native American Caleb…

Great Book: Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor

Favorite Moms From Books

In thinking about my favorite mothers presented in books I’ve read, I realized that many of my beloved books have no mother in them at all — Burger’s Daughter by Nadine Gordimer, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, Great Expectations by Dickens — or a very sad, downtrodden mother — Jude…

Pop-up Bookstores: Saving the Printed Book, and Bookstores, One Pop at a Time

Pop-up bookstores are an international phenomenon, from New York to Chicago to Honolulu to London to Berlin — and now one has come to Pittsburgh and it’s the biggest one ever. Twenty-four thousand…

Another Reason to Love My Library

Last night the Westport Public Library honored Patti Smith at its annual “Booked for the Evening” fundraising event. Smith was applauded for her memoir Just Kids (which won the National Book Award for Biography in 2010) and for her long-time support of books, reading…

Oprah likes me! She really likes me!

O magazine has listed Tolstoy and the Purple Chair as one of ten books to pick up now: “anyone who has ever sought refuge in literature will identify.”

Is there anyone out there who has not sought refuge in literature? Throughout my life…

Knock Down: Murder in Maine

Knock Down by Sarah Graves is the fourteenth in the “Home Repair is Homicide” mystery series. I’ve been in the wrong neighborhood, obviously, because this series is new to me but now that I’ve visited Eastport, Maine and gotten to know gutsy Jacobia Tiptree I’ll be back for…