Barbara's blog

Kate Spade has done it again!

In a previous post, Kate Spade's purse designs were highlighted -- The Great Gatsy by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

Now, there are more literary clutches. Pride and Prejudice and Emma by Jane Austen, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson, and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Cool and hip. I Married Adventure is very on-trend -- a zebra print background!

Just in time for holiday gift-giving!

" . . . I don’t look forward to a future in which my Kindle (or whatever device inevitably succeeds it) is the only book on the shelf. But it’s a future I’m fairly convinced is awaiting us, and it’s one that I, as a consumer, am playing my part in advancing us toward. There are moments when I wish I could follow the lead of Borges’ retired librarian and bury my book of sand on some obscure shelf in a library basement and just forget all about it. But then I realize that the thing is just too useful, too crazily convenient a tool to not embrace. And then I tell myself that it’s not possible, anyway, to shelve the advance of technology, and that history is filled with examples of beautiful things being supplanted by more efficient versions of those things.

Author On the Bookcase
Mara Purl 

I'm excited to welcome Mara Purl, author of The Milford-Haven Novels, to On the Bookcase. Milford-Haven is a fictitious town on California's Central Coast. Pre-9/11, housing is on the rise, the stock market is booming, and Milford-Haven is full of the upwardly mobile pouring out of Los Angeles in search of a fresh start or a weekend getaway. The novels are based on Purl's BBC Radio drama Milford-Haven U.S.A. 

The first in the Milford-Haven series, What the Heart Knows, features Miranda Jones. Artist Miranda begins to trust her heart enough to escape from her life of privilege and start over in Milford-Haven. Now that she's moved, deeper questions surface: What is her life purpose? What's missing?

Author On the Bookcase
Susan Gregg Gilmore

Thrilled to welcome Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, to On the Bookcase. Susan novel's tells the story of Bezellia Grove, the daughter of Nashville's most prominent families. She is expected to embrace her position in high society. Nobody in Nashville has a bigger name to live up to than. In 1960's Nashville, relationships are complicated, where society remains neatly ordered by class, status and skin color. Bezellia and Samuel, son of her nanny, and the family's handyman, have a clandestine affair. Their romance is met with anger and fear from both families. In a time and place where rebelling against the rules carries a steep price.

AUTHOR SQUARED
Michele Young-Stone
Cara Hoffman

Two Authors chat about writing, books, and everything in between

I'm excited to welcome Michele Young-Stone (The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors) and Cara Hoffman (So Much Pretty) to Author Squared.

Take it away, Michele and Cara!

Michele: I have some questions I’m dying to ask you.

Author On the Bookcase
Alan Cheuse

I'm so thrilled to welcome Alan Cheuse -- writer, professor, NPR book reviewer -- to On the Bookcase! I met Alan at the 2011 Virginia Festival of the Book, again at the 2011 Gaithersburg Book Festival and then at the St. John's College The Art of the Book. We keep bumping into each other!  

What does the word "browsing" mean to you? A computer term? Alan shares his idea of browsing -- "a form of dreaming."

The Pleasures and Necessity of Browsing 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a browser. But it didn’t begin for me with books.

Fourth Installment!
Sisters of the Traveling Computers
Novel-in-Progress

Eight great writers are going to produce a progressive novel -- like a progressive dinner! Each one will write a couple paragraphs, a chapter, two chapters (whatever strikes her fancy) round robin style without discussing it with each other. This novel-in-progress will continue through the rest of the year.

I'm so excited to welcome Jay Varner, author of Nothing Left to Burn, to On the Bookcase! Jay's memoir eloquently tells the story of a son’s relationship with his father, the fire chief and a local hero, and his grandfather, a serial arsonist. Jay returns home after college and lands a job at the local newspaper writing the police and fire beat. Three men of the same family share a passion or obession with fire. In digging into the past, Jay's story reveals layers of family secrets, lies, and half-truths about fire-fighting and arson. It is only when he finally has the truth in hand that he comes to an understanding of the forces that drove his father, and of the fires that for all his efforts his father could never extinguish.

In this post, Jay shares his high school struggles to get a girl and be accepted.

Author On the Bookcase
Jael McHenry

I'm thrilled to welcome Jael McHenry, author of The Kitchen Daughter, to On the Bookcase. Reading and recipes -- perfect for reading groups! After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes. (Midnight Cry Brownies -- yummy!) She learns her cooking will lure family ghosts and these ghosts leave clues to some family secrets. As Ginny deals with her loss, she faces another challenge  -- her sister wants to sell the house Ginny has ever known.

2011 Man Booker Prize Longlist Announced

The Man Booker Prize, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008, aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.