The Thanksgiving break gave me leisure time to kick back and relax. No blog for Thursday meant I could get into one of those $1 book finds I’d piled up on my end table. My holiday read was a paperback mystery first published in 2008. Mighty Old Bones by Mary Saums is definitely a co

The park this morning was crystalline with rain. As I walked along a leaf strewn path, the lines from a Shakespearean sonnet came to mind: That time of year thou mayst behold in me, when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruine

Recently I had coffee with a friend and over our steaming mugs, she reacted to one of the magazines I mentioned in passing. “Town&Country? I never thought of you as an elitist,” she giggled.  Unphased, I replied with an airy wave of my hand. “If I ever meet an elitist, I fe

Michael Callahan’s piece on Daphne du Maurier in the November issue of Town&Country, (pg. 54) heartened me like a light blinking in the wilderness. Recently, I’d been interviewed by a young journalist for my new book Trompe l’Oeil. She asked what genre best described my work

All my life libraries have been important to me, first as a student, then as a researcher and now as a writer. Most people would give libraries a thumbs up, even if it meant using it as a place for respite from the rain.  I got to thinking about the many uses of the library after rea

One of my favorite books is a little classic called The Human Comedy by William Saroyan. It’s the story about a boy, Homer Macauley, who owns a second-hand bike and works as a telegraph messenger in the San Joaquin Valley during World War II. His is a coming of age story much like m

I’ve recently finished The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve. Published 1998, most people have probably already enjoyed it. If not, I’d recommend it as a good beach read.  I bought the novel at a bookstore that specializes in mysteries and having completed it, I’m hard pressed to

In Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World, children are created and raised without parents in Hatcheries and Conditioning Centers where they are divided into castes ranging from the highest, Alpha, to the lowest, Epsilon. The society is one without parents or nurturing, and people’s moods

In October, I went to hear Richard Dawkins speak on secularism. He was promoting his latest book, The Magic of Reality and as I’d read and admired his earlier work, The God Delusion, I was eager to hear him. For many in the room of approximately 500, the lecture must have been satis

Recently, I joined a small group of local writers, some published by small presses and others self-published. Our purpose was to share ideas on how to promote books. Nine of us gathered at the home of writer/attorney, Susan Stoner, whose two novels, Timber Beasts and Land Sharks I’v