Blogging & Musing...

Devil in the White City—the fairest of fairs

Sunday, 25 October 2009 09:38

Were you like me, wondering what the World’s Fair looked like in Erik Larson’s book?  The book’s photos didn’t help much. Take heart:  Below is a photo that appeared in today’s New York Times, front page of the “Week in Review” section.  Now we can see what all the fuss was about!

From the mailbag—spooky novels

Sunday, 18 October 2009 10:44

Oooooh...!  Halloween’s coming up. A reader asked me to come up with ideas for spooky mystery novels. The writer herself suggested Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. Good one!

Here are some I came up with—mostly older works:

• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, 1938  (an all-time favorite)
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, 1847  (the mad women in the attic)
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, 1859-60 (scrumptious)
• The Hound of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle, 1091-02 (the great Sherlock and Watson)
• Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, 2003 (we have guides for the complete vampire series)
• Anything scary by Stephen King… Any particular suggestions from anyone?

If anyone has some other ideas, let us know.  We’d love to hear from you.

LitLovers meets The Birth of Venus

Thursday, 08 October 2009 11:31

Ah, poor me...I just returned from Italy. Life is so hard.

While there...I was reading Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus—which I’d just happend to pick off the bookshelf at the house where I was staying. And here’s what happened…

Dumb me. I left my purse on the Florence Hop-On-Hop-Off tour bus, which takes you around the city. Had to sprint—shoes off—through a piazza to head it off at the next stop. No mean feet, so to speak (not so young…nor so thin). But happy ending. Got the bus, got the purse.
 
Here’s the cool part:  the piazza I cut through was in front of the Basilica di Santa Croce—the very place, in the book, where Savanarola banned women from public life  (i.e., those running barefoot around town). And I’d just read that chapter of the book the night before. Ah literature...ah, life! 

Anyway, my trip was slightly different from Liz Gilbert’s…my version was Eat, Run, Eat. Just as much fun...but no book, no movie.

On the air with NPR

Tuesday, 01 September 2009 11:42

Short update—I’ve just received a terrific invitation to be a guest on a local NPR station in Hampton, Virginia.  We’ll be discussing book club issues—the how-tos of starting and running a club, and handling difficult issues. 

The show is HearSay with Cathy Lewis.  Maureen Corrigan will also be on, as well as Susan Coleman who is leading Virginia’s Big Read!  Call letters are WHRV 89.5 FM. 

Most of you won’t be within reach, but for those in Southeastern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina…tune in on Thursday, September 3, 2009, from 12 noon to 1pm.