Mailbox Monday was looking like it was going to be a very short post, since Julie & Julia was the only book that came into my house fo...

"In the early 1980s, when I was still going steady with Jim Beam straight-up and a beer back, I became part of an exchange program be...

Fawcett Boom's After Dinner Speaking is a short, practical book published in 1991. I picked it up in the mid-90s, when I was putting...

"The Silver Palate was born of two women's personal desperation." -- The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila ...

The July issue of the always-rewarding Internet Review of Books is up and as lively as ever. My review of Wall Street is one of 13 no...

Rebecca of Rebecca Reads is hosting a Spice of Life Challenge that hits me at just the right time because the focus is on books about fo...

Whether you live in a little house and need more practical space, or a big house and want some psychological space, Stylish Sheds and El...

Only one book came in the mail last week, so Mailbox Monday is pushing it. But many came into my house last week because I stopped at a ch...

"On an uncomfortably warm September evening in 1999, I swapped my wife for a goose liver." -- Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine...

LibraryThing outed me as the slacker I am. Long a member of LibraryThing's terrific Early Reviewer program , I have been lucky enough ...

"Some of the sweetest sounds that a speaker can hear are the surprised ripple of laughter from the audience, the murmurs of approval ...

In Changing Places , David Lodge ’s 1975 novel, American and British college professors exchange teaching positions for part if the 1969 a...

There is a reason Elinor Lipman gets compared to Jane Austen – like Austen, she can dissect a closed community down to its bones, but is ...

With the stock market still in the doldrums and the dust from the housing bubble explosion still settling, the timing of Steve Fraser’s ...

Last week was a busy book week, making for a long Mailbox Monday post. Two came in the mail:  The Ice Chorus by Sarah Stonich (a novel s...

"I drove my truck into the gravel driveway of her house and parked next to her red SUV." -- Super Sunday in Newport: Notes From...

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." -- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. This was the book I chose for my book clu...

Published in 1965, The Beggar is, on the surface at least, the story of Omar’s midlife crisis. While less overtly political than Naguib M...