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“Agonizing, Unrelenting, & Impossible”: Biking the Continental Divide
Just about a month ago, I put my books down and got on a bike strapped with bags stuffed with clothes, snacks, tools and tire tubes, and a swimsuit. A few months prior I had met a college friend for dinner and she asked me if I was going to our college reunion in Massachusetts. Read more
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Ma and Me: a memoir that is so much more
Sometimes I believe in book karma. I pick up a book for one reason and by the end it’s given me dozens more reasons to recommend it. This was the case with Ma and Me a memoir by Cambodian American journalist Putsata Reang. I began reading it because I thought I might slip this column in before Read more
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Girls in Bands: One Real, One Not
“Stunning” . . .”Explosive” . . . “All-consuming” . . . “Addictively voyeuristic.” The praise on the back jacket of Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid was captivating, if not a little high in amperage. And having been a book editor for many years, I know that hardcover jacket blurbs are somewhat Read more
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Escaping Underground and into the Clouds
The woman seated next to me at the book group describes almost word for word the image I’ve been trying to put out of my thoughts since reading it a few days earlier. It is worse than grim, but part of me is glad that we cannot forget it. So many stories move quickly in Read more
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New Year, New-ish Books
The women in almost-matching black down coats are grazing a table full of books and both still look hungry for more. I recognize a title by Amor Towles under the arm of one of them, an author I’ve developed a taste for. This cozy little bookstore is busy on an early January Saturday. There are Read more
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A Book Lover Finds Gifts Close to Home
A chalkboard standing on the sidewalk reads “Everything that Amazon is not.” Peering in a window, my eye is caught by a red, white, and blue book cover The United States of Cocktails and two vintage lowball glasses perched on a wrapped present. I open a door and the warmth of a cast iron stove Read more
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Reading In the Catskills 