This is my favorite photo of myself. It was Christmas. I was two years old, clutching my teddy bear and wearing my cowgirl outfit. You can’t tell, but the boots were red, and I wore them everywhere. Later, I acquired a coonskin cap, just like Davy—Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. Back then I […]
Category Archives: Book Reviews
About this time, the editor, who is spending a total of three weeks in Morocco, is probably sick and tired of Moroccan food and is yearning, yes, licking her lips over the prospect of returning home to the South and eating a great big bowl of grits. Seems like a good time to revisit this […]
On the one hand you have feminism. On the other, you have romance and comedy. Assuming both hands belong to the same person – say, Anne Tyler – together they reveal more of the human condition than either could on its own. Welcome to Vinegar Girl, a slender volume that might be heftier than you […]
When my husband and I married in 1964, one of the first things we did was buy a dog. Not just ANY dog, but a dachshund. Originally, we had yearned for a basset hound, but the couple next door to us in our first apartment had one, and his feet were bigger than mine. So . […]
Five days from now I’m leaving my fluttery skirts and tank-tops behind and going to Iceland. I’ve skimmed a guidebook or two, but mostly I’m preparing by reading The Sagas of Icelanders. Sure, it might not be super relevant to cafés in Reykjavik or useful as to which camping sites are the best, but for […]
Do you consider a rare steak overcooked? Does a full moon make you want to rip off your clothes and howl? Is lycanthropy your favorite four-syllable word? Are An American Werewolf in London and its sequel …in Paris your go-to date movies? If so, you might be a werewolf wannabe, but you’re not the real […]
I want so much to know whether Jung Yun has a second book in process. And if so, when I will be able to get hold of it. It is not often that I am stunned and bewitched by a novel, particularly a debut novel. All too often I understand the characters too early, push […]
I am not a particularly adventurous person. Saying that, and not really knowing what I was in for, I agreed to accompany a good friend on an eight day cruise to the Galapagos Islands last October. Since I had never been on a pleasure cruise before, the experience was eye-opening to say the least. Every […]
Ina Yalof’s new book, Food and the City: New York’s Professional Chefs, Restaurateurs, Line Cooks, Street Vendors, and Purveyors Talk About What They Do and Why They Do It, is due out May 31, 2016. The book, essentially a collection of oral histories, is divided into nine sections, each dealing with a different aspect of […]
Orphans – we are captivated by their stories. From Huck Finn to Oliver Twist to Jane Eyre to Anne Shirley, their stories endure. Even children, perhaps from fearing the unthinkable loss of parents, find orphan stories fascinating. I’m thinking of Madeline, The Box Car Children, The Whipping Boy, and Mary Lennox in her secret garden. […]
Readers Unbound 