Writing Blog
Book review: At the Edge of the Orchard
I enjoy historical fiction and I’ve read of all of Tracy Chevalier’s novels, so I was happy to learn about her latest when it was released. This was my favorite novel since A Girl With A Pearl Earring. At the Edge of the Orchard is set in the mid 1800s, and follows the difficult lives…
Read MoreI met this year’s Goodreads Reading Challenge
Perhaps list-making and checking off items on a list is a silly thing, but I can’t help enjoying the annual Goodreads Reading Challenge. I’m an avid reader anyway and – oddly, perhaps – I’ve always made lists of books I’ve read, so the Goodreads Reading Challenge was a perfect match for me. I love looking…
Read More600 posts!
In case you are wondering, this is not my age. Can you tell I have snippy teenagers/pre-teens at home? But I’m a big fan of marking milestones, so why the heck not? 600 posts up on my blog deserves at least a pat on the back. I began my blog back in 2012 to post…
Read MoreWishing luck to all you NaNoers!
Once again we’ve reached November, the month where crazy writers around the world embark in Marathon writing sessions under the annual National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge. The goal? To write 50,000 words of a novel during the month, and to do so by shutting down your internal editor and allowing yourself to be overtaken…
Read MoreAlice Munro on small town stories
“The writers of the American South were the first writers who really moved me because they showed me that you could write about small towns, rural people, and that kind of life I knew very well.” Alice Munro I like this quote from short story writer Alice Munro. And if anyone knows how to tell…
Read MoreI love Provence’s Le Bleuet bookstore
Wow – I’ve found my my new favorite bookstore in France! We were on holiday in the Luberon valley of France this summer when we were told we had to stop off at the Bleuet bookstore in the charming little town of Banon. We were visiting towns around the region, and so when we stopped…
Read More(Feels like) Summer reading: Americanah
Okay, this weekend I had to take my son to the beach for a fun track and field workout session for him, but it also turned out to be a wonderful, relive-the-summer day for me. At Ostia, the beach nearest Rome, the massive summer crowds were gone, but the weather was almost as gorgeous as…
Read MoreBravo, Kazuo Ishiguro!
To be frank, after last year’s nomination of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan as Nobel Laureate for Literature left me rather annoyed, I wasn’t expecting much to emerge from Stockholm this year. So was I ever so pleasantly surprised to hear that this year’s honor was awarded to fabulously talented and diverse Japanese-English novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. My…
Read MoreRereading high school favorites…
With my oldest son in high school, I’ve enjoyed some of the ‘joys’ of returning to some of the old Classics I haven’t read since my own (long, long ago) high school days. Of course, many classics I reread regularly on my own, but strangely enough, for some others I apparently need a little push.…
Read MoreDo you ever need a vacation from the novel you’re reading?
My true problem with reading is that I very rarely give up on a novel. It’s the same mantra I preach to my kids (with varying levels of success). However, sometimes it pays off. My kids’ generation are (sadly?) used to novels that read more like action movies – dumping them in the action in…
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