It wasn’t until the third night of my bike trip through the Finger Lakes that I started reading The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner. The first night I was so exhausted that I may have fallen asleep before my head hit the inflatable pillow. The second night I counted stars through the screen door of my tent instead… Continue reading Two Wheels, Two Ways: A Novel and a Memoir of Long-Distance Bike Trips
“The smell of salt air filled my nostrils. . . . I searched the southwest horizon, trying to find the light from Bodie Island. There were no landmarks. There was no land. I’m committed now; no diving over-board, no swimming back to shore.” Earlier in the summer I picked up Tori Murden McClure’s A Pearl in the… Continue reading No Swimming Back to Shore: Rowing Solo Across the Atlantic
En route to the Berkshires 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… Continue reading “Agonizing, Unrelenting, & Impossible”: Biking the Continental Divide
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… Continue reading Ma and Me: a memoir that is so much more
“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… Continue reading Girls in Bands: One Real, One Not
Reading In the Catskills 