Whatever Else

Side Effects: the Books of Almudena Solana

I am a huge fan of the Spanish writer Almudena Solana. Great news for me: I am finally meeting her this week after years of reading and re-reading her books (we became acquainted through emails back and forth). Bad news? Only one of her novels — the…

Book Girl TV and Purple Cocktails

Discovering Chimamanda Adichie

I have read the short stories of Chimamanda Adichie and they are beautiful, transformative and…

A Small Gift: Snapshot Reviews of Fun Holiday Reading

Happy December, everyone! I will be posting short reviews of fun holiday reading over the next few weeks, starting with Comfort and Joy by India Knight, and continuing on with A Christmas Homecoming by Anne Perry; The Alpine Winter by…

Sharing Books and Spreading Magic

On Halloween, I saved the tricks for my kids and sent out treats of one hundred paperback and hardcover books to three different APO and FPO addresses, here and abroad. Who needs — and deserves — the comfort, escape, and pleasure of books more than our United States…

Love at First Bark — and I’m a Cat Person

I have three cats and would have five more if my husband Jack could stand the drifting clouds of hair, the scratched furniture, the meowing, and the brawling. A dog he would not even consider, with its extra requirements of walking, drool wiping, and…

On My Way to Chicago

I hope to meet many Midwestern Book Lovers on my swing through the Chicago Area. I’ll be in Evanston reading from Tolstoy and the Purple Chair and answering questions on Thursday, July 14th, at Evanston Public Library; Mundelein on the 15th at midday at The Fremont Public Library; Chicago on…

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…

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…