Views from the top of the Stubnerkogel, Bad Gastein, Austria

I’ve already written about hiking up the Graukogel – another of the panoramic peaks of beautiful Bad Gastein, Austria – an idyllic Alpine town in Austria’s Salzburg province. Stubnerkogel (1943 meters above sea level) is the other peak easily reached from Bad Gastein’s center. There are great views from the top – and views out to…

Read More

Do you ever need incentives to edit?

Your novel is all completed and now it’s just down to the easy peasy task of editing, right? Well, err, I doubt many would describe it that way. I find the initial writing to be the easier task, and the editing process to be much slower going. That’s why I like to look at photos…

Read More

Picture-perfect, lakeside Hallstatt, Austria

If you visit this idyllic, little village in the Salzammergut region of Upper Austria, you’ll be forgiven for wanting to chase all the tourists out and have this beautiful spot all to yourself. That must be how the fewer than 950 locals feel each summer as the hordes invade this pretty Austrian town on the…

Read More

Book review: A Hundred Summers

Plot in a nutshell: Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Years later, boy returns into girl’s life, now married to girl’s best friend. Classic story, but it’s what the author does with it. This wonderful debut novel by Beatriz Williams is told in alternating story lines. The first unrolls in 1931 as smart, ambitious Smith…

Read More

The medieval town of Radicòfani, Tuscany

Tuscany is a pretty gorgeous region, with so much to see and do. I have the chance to get up to one pretty corner of Tuscany each summer when my son attends a track and field camp in the pretty medieval town of Abbadia di San Salvatore. It’s a great chance to visit the rolling…

Read More

Want a workout for your brain? Read a novel.

As (obsessive) readers, we all know how a novel can amuse us and transport us. But did you know novel reading also provides a workout for your brain? There’s a short, interesting article in the LA Times about brain research showing how our mind reacts to novel reading. College students were all provided with a…

Read More

Rereading Little House on the Prairie

I read Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder when I was a little girl, and, like most kids my age, I loved it. I devoured the whole series, and also enjoyed the television series of the time. Years later, my own son saw it in a bookstore back on a visit to New…

Read More