Favorite reads so far for 2016

I’m always pleased to get a good reading start to the new year. Luckily, despite a few duds, 2016 has started out quite well for me as a reading year. Here are my favorites so far (and I’m hoping there will be many more): The Last Summer Judith Kinghorn I enjoyed this atmospheric story, a…

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Kafka’s castle? Frýdlant, Czech Republic

If you’re in northern Czech Republic, just beyond Liberec and close to the Polish border, you’ll want to see the dramatic Frýdlant Castle in  the little town of Frýdlant that is dominated by its hilltop castle. This is said to have been the castle that inspired Franz Kafka’s famous novel The Castle. Following the Battle of…

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Do you give up on authors after one bad book?

I didn’t actually think that I did this, but I recently realized I tend to throw up my hands in frustration and not read authors anymore after one of their books disappoints me. This doesn’t mean just that a book’s not my favorite within an author’s oeuvre. But if I’ve dedicated a significant amount of time…

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Pining away for the Palm Beach resort, Maldives

I don’t know what it is about the first week of February, but whenever it rolls around I see I’m writing travel posts from tropical locales I’ve visited earlier. Apparently, I’m sick of the cold and want to bask in memories of lounging on warm beaches. This year is no exception. Last Easter, I was…

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Will the juice come?

As long as you can start, you are all right. The juice will come. -Ernest Hemingway I love this quote from the American author Ernest Hemingway, and I find it very useful. I was recently speaking to a friend who is mapping out all of her ideas. She seems excited about her project and endlessly…

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Reason #5383 to love Rome: San Teodoro neighborhood

San Teodoro an interesting, and very old, neighborhood of Rome, tucked away between the Circo Massimo, Campidoglio and the Ghetto. It’s said to be the area where Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were said to be suckled by the she-wolf. Today, it’s a quiet neighborhood: only a few cross roads and a few sites…

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What’s the ‘crossroads’ novel?

Once on a long hike, I told my older son the story of Stephen King’s novel The Shining. It terrified him, but also kept him going on a pretty exhausting 12 km trek. I read some novels out loud to my children, and my oldest son asked me if I would read this to him.…

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Queuing up for the London Eye

As anyone traveling with kids knows, travel plans alter radically once you are lugging along pint-sized companions. On a trip to London with my children, I had plenty of activities to fill our days, but none of them included queuing up for kilometers to go on a giant ferris wheel. Unfortunately, the London Eye is visible…

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What are your 2016 writing resolutions?

This has become a bit of a tradition for me – perhaps I’ve figured out a way how to hold myself accountable for my writing schedule. Each year, I set myself writing goals … and up until now I’ve pretty much stuck to schedule. Let’s see if I can keep this up for 2016… Of…

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