"McSoreley's occupies the ground floor of a red-brick tenement at 15 Seventh Street, just off Cooper Square, where the Bowery end...

Sort of in the spirit (so to speak) of my goal of making one new recipe from every cookbook, I also like to try new cocktail recipes. ...

"After I finished An Inconvenient Trout , which I recommend highly for its technical information and helpful how-to hints, such as no...

Clown Girl by Monica Drake (published by Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts ). Monica Drake writes about a city very much like any cit...

Morrel took the purse, and started as he did so, for a vague remembrance reminded him that it once belonged to himself. At one end was the...

I had a busy book week, so my Mailbox Monday list is long (so long, I'm putting it up early). First, Unbridled Books sent me A Geog...

"Five o'clock and freezing." -- A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. Grrrrrr . . . A book pet peeve of mine is openi...

Missing Mom is the story of how an adult daughter copes with the unexpected death of her widowed mother. Nikki Eaton is 32, single, inv...

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks: Which do you prefer? Short stories? Or full-length novels? I much prefer no...

Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis is a compendium of Kingsley Amis’s previously published “dipsography”: On Drink , Every Da...

" One-Night Stan's ice-cream truck, the neighborhood drug mobile, still played nearby. Drugs, ice-cream, balloon toys and pray...

June at Writing is a Blessing is the winner of A Small Fortune ! Thanks for everyone who participated in my first book giveaway. And hu...

If I hadn't done a quick swing past the dollar shelf at Powell's, I wouldn't have had anything to show for Mailbox Monday ! Luc...

"Balloon Tying for Christ was the cheapest balloon manual I could find." --  Clown Girl by Monica Drake ( Independent Publi...

John Knowles is still famous for his debut novel, A Separate Peace , although his other novels never caught on with any enduring populari...

LAST DAY TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY! Thanks to the author, Audrey Braun, I have a brand new copy of A Small Fortune to give away. Please go t...

"Anthropologists assure us that wherever we find man he speaks." -- On Drink "There's a certain satisfaction to be ...

Short Stories by Anton Chekhov , produced and read by Max Bollinger This audio collection of six lesser known short stories by Anton Ch...

The Grail: A Year Ambling & Shambling Through an Oregon Vineyard in Pursuit of the Best Pinot Noir Wine in the Whole Wild World by Bri...

"The Reardons were too important to be snobbish; they entertained people they liked or wanted to help or found amusing or felt sorry ...

Audrey Braun 's romantic thriller, A Small Fortune , is a terrifically fun book to spend a weekend with. Braun was nice enough to answ...

After spending most of a very fun day antiquing in charming Aurora, Oregon , I stopped by one of my favorite library book stores, Second Ha...