Posts

Showing posts from February, 2014

Keeping Up With A Series — or Four

Image
A series of books is a delight and a weighty responsibility. I have four collections going right now, and I've almost surrendered. Each book in every series is heavy with plot, character development. Tiny frayed threads beg to be woven into the larger tapestry of the rich brocade of, say, A Discovery of Witches or A Map of Time . And yet — How can I resist such luscious stories? I began the All Souls Trilogy in 2011. When the second book, Shadow of Night , hit the shelves in 2012, I nearly jumped at the opportunity to read the first book again so I was properly acquainted with the nuances of the story. Until I read the author's website. Seems there was no release date for the third book. Honestly, I can't remember what I had for breakfast most mornings, so I am wont to begin a series without a strong enough commitment to re-read as necessary — particularly such a rich novel. I waited until I knew the release date for The Book of Life . It's in five months

Poetry Wednesday: Looking Back in My Eighty-First Year

Image
Looking Back in My Eighty-First Year    How did we get to be old ladies— my grandmother's job—when we  were the long-leggèd girls?  — Hilma Wolitzer     I nstead of marrying the day after graduation, in spite of freezing on my father's arm as  here comes the bride struck up,  saying, I'm not sure I want to do this,     I should have taken that fellowship  to the University of Grenoble to examine  the original manuscript  of Stendhal's unfinished Lucien Leuwen ,     I, who had never been west of the Mississippi,  s hould have crossed the ocean  in third class on the Cunard White Star, the war just over, the Second World War     when Kilroy was here, that innocent graffito,  two eyes and a nose draped over  a fence line. How could I go?  Passion had locked us together.     Sixty years my lover,  he says he would have waited.  He says he would have sat  w here the steamship docked     till the last