What can be more wonderful to a bibliophile than a book about books? Lewis Buzbee’s nonfiction essay on bookshops is a tribute to the love of reading and selling books. Buzbee draws heavily from his decades of experience as an independent bookshop employee and publishing sales representative. “Books connect us with others, but that connection is created in solitude, one reader in one chair hearing one writer, what John Irving refers to as one genius…
Read Matsuo Basho Create your own poetry. On this day of Spring! It’s April 17th, when we celebrate International Haiku Day worldwide because this form of ancient Japanese poetry is that awesome. If you are nerdy about poetry, then I expect your social feeds to be full of haiku memes, forwards, and jokes. On this day, haiku gets a lot of love in the world. So, What’s A Haiku? For those who are not familiar, haiku…
“Yosemite Park… None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire, and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree.” ― John Muir Set in the heart of California, Yosemite National Park is without doubt our favorite national park destination in the state. An easy drive from either north or south of California, the park gets crowded during the summer providing an easy weekend getaway for…
We are three months into 2021 and it’s time to take stock of things in life. COVID-19 is still here, Europe is going back into sporadic lockdowns and we are still asking–WHEN WILL THIS END? But it’s not all gloom and doom. On the personal front, with a new job where I sometimes get paid to write (yay!), a kid back in school and my first shot of COVID vaccine around the corner, I would…
Heyer’s flawed yet deeply engaging regency romances are my personal palette cleanser. They are my go-to novels as I take a break from intense books or when trying to change genres. Language and character development satisfies the literary snob in me, while the plot line is fluffy enough to entertain over-worked, hassled mom who doesn’t have the time for complex storylines. About Frederica Frederica does not differ from her other works – predictable yet fun.…
End of the year is a time for cheer and celebrations; it’s also time to catalog another year of our life. What you achieved (staying alive and not catching COVID), places you travelled to (nowhere, because COVID), things you ate (loads of home-cooked meals, because COVID) and books read (loads, coz what else were you gonna to do because COVID!!) So here are my obligatory ten-books-of-the-year list that literally nobody asked for. It was hard…
This 2008 BBC production gives its own unique twist to the legend of Arthur and Merlin; but the tale of Arthur and his knights has always been mired in myth, and so we really can’t hold it against this show. The Concept of ‘Merlin’ In this interpretation of the story, Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon(played by the excellent Anthony Head) is alive and kicking, as the King of Camelot. He is a stern and a wise…
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series caught my attention by its lovely cover jacket and an intriguing premise — a young governess hired to educate three children who appeared to be raised by wolves. While I rarely wade into children’s books, I have to say this was a joyful discovery. In The Mysterious Howling, the first book in the series, a very young Penelope Lumley of Swanburne Academy finds employment at Ashton Place. She is to…
