So there’s a lot of stuff going on right now – the disasters in this country, both natural and political, and then personal things – a trip to New York soon and getting my next retreat lined up for October, going through applications for the fall class at UCLA, etc. and now it’s Labor…
I like to read multiple books at the same time so that when I finish one that I love I’m not bereft and can just continue reading another book I’m already into. This month I’m really in luck. I feel like I’m hanging out with some of the most interesting people on the planet…
The best way to get Trump out of your head is to read the smart, inspiring, eloquent website called Brain Pickings written by Maria Popova. Her piece on the new memoir by Bill Hayes about his relationship to Oliver Sacks and New York caused me to order it instantly. (Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and…
God willing we’ll be able to exhale tomorrow. Meanwhile I’m rereading A Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh and feeling calmer. This book is amazing – first published in 1955 and still necessary reading. She writes about searching for a purity of intention, a singleness of eye, a central core to her life,…
Oh, this is such a good book! It’s wise, funny, smart, cranky and full of love for New York and delves into the important questions about life and friendship and connection. The author is Vivian Gornick, (author of the wise, cranky, smart etc. The Situation and the Story) When I love a book I make marks on…
Here are some of the reasons my students write: for validation, for the love of language, to heal, to get their story out, to go deeper in their life, to find the perfect words or sentences to express feelings, to connect, to entertain. And everyone said they’d write even if they didn’t get published. (Though…
My name is Barbara and I’m a book hoarder. Though I confess I’m still in denial – I mean there’s a reason I can’t give up the books on these shelves (in my office, living room, bedroom.) The reason is that the books are old friends. We have history. I remember when we met, where…
I have become seriously addicted to Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City (I’m a little late to the party, the first volume was published in 1978). For some reason I started in the middle of the series with Babycakes and it took me a while to get into the book. I kept losing track of…
I’ve just started reading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. It got rave reviews when it came out last month but the plot sounded so complicated that I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it. I got it anyway and I’m now around page 100 and can’t put it down. I read her earlier two books ages ago and…
I just read Louise Erdrich’s gripping novel, Shadow Tag, about an out-of-control marriage that reads like a literary thriller – which it really is. You can’t put it down. I always tell my students that fiction is fiction, period. If it’s called a novel you don’t start wondering what was true, what was made up,…
