Category Archives: What I’m Reading

Adriana, My Paesana

Posted on February 26, 2013

I open Adriana Trigiani’s books with trembling hands–not because I can’t wait to read, though that’s true–but because her work is so familiar and terrific and I wish I’d written it myself. Her city settings and Italian-American characters resonate so … Continue reading →

Posted in Role Models, What I'm Reading, Writing | 4 Comments

Summer Reading

Posted on July 10, 2012

So despite a looming deadline on my first mystery, I find I need to take a break now and then for some fun summer reads. Here’s what’s on the pile and in the Kindle: Poetic Justice, by Alicia Rasley. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Comfort Reads, Seasonal, What I'm Reading | 2 Comments

The ISR Pile, or. . .

Posted on May 15, 2012

books I Should Read. I loved The Bluest Eye. Ditto Song of Solomon and Jazz. But I can’t bring myself to even open Toni Morrison’s best-known work, because I can’t get past the premise: desperate slave kills her own children. (I … Continue reading →

Posted in What I'm Reading | 5 Comments

Best. Gift. Ever. (2011)

Posted on January 3, 2012

It’s no coincidence that this year’s Best Gift Ever is a book. (As was last year’s.) This Christmas, my dear friend and colleague Marie presented me with the following: P.D. James, widely considered the greatest living mystery author, is second … Continue reading →

Posted in Adaptations and Updates, Literary Influences, Seasonal, What I'm Reading | 4 Comments

Summer Reading

Posted on August 1, 2011

To me, all reading qualifies as “vacation reading.” In fact, that very phrase is redundant, as every book is a vacation from life. But here’s what I’ve been curling up with this summer: Still Life, Louise Penny A Fatal Grace, … Continue reading →

Posted in Comfort Reads, What I'm Reading | 6 Comments

Kindling Interest

Posted on July 23, 2011

I should start by saying that holding an open book–whether in bed, on the beach, at the kitchen table while I eat a solitary breakfast, or with my legs slung over the side of an arm chair–provides me one of … Continue reading →

Posted in Comfort Reads, What I'm Reading | 7 Comments

Will the Real Will Shakespeare. . .

Posted on May 23, 2011

please stand up? (Please stand up.)  Having just finished Stacy Schiff’s astonishing biography of Cleopatra, it occurs to me that we know much more about an ancient queen who lived 2000 years ago than we do about the much-closer-in-history William Shakespeare. … Continue reading →

Posted in Shakespeare, What I'm Reading | 4 Comments

HEA or HFN?

Posted on March 22, 2011

                                                                                                         I have been re-reading Stephen Greenblatt’s wonderful biography of Shakespeare, Will in the World. It’s one of those books that inspires you to read passages aloud to a half-listening spouse; in fact I’ve been gushing about it so much … Continue reading →

Posted in Shakespeare, What I'm Reading, Writing | 2 Comments

Shakespeare’s Sisters

Posted on March 2, 2011

                                                                                                           Having just finished Eleanor Brown’s marvelous debut novel, The Weird Sisters, I have been thinking a lot about sisters in general, but more particularly, sisters in Shakespeare. Though her story is modern, Brown’s trio of sisters, Rosalind, Bianca and … Continue reading →

Posted in La Famiglia, Literary Influences, Shakespeare, What I'm Reading | 10 Comments