Reading
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Fall 2015 Events
Women’s National Book Association Sept. 12: Writing for Change event, San Francisco Alameda Reads Sept. 17, 6 p.m. Alameda Reads (Adult Literacy graduates) at Books, Inc. Alameda. North Coast Redwood Writers’ Conference Sept. 18-20: Annual Conference: Reading + two workshops (Social Media for Dummies/Why You Need a Platform; Creative Non-Fiction for Writers: Writing Essays and Reviews) Banned Books Week Sept. 30, 11 a.m. Reading marathon at Alameda Free Library (Main Branch) Litquake (San Francisco) Oct. 10, 2-4 p.m. Books, Inc. Opera Plaza. Moderator, panel of women authors for National Reading Group Month. Poetry Reading/Workshop October (date TBA): Teachers and students of Sumiton Christian School, Sumiton, Alabama I’ll be traveling and doing research for…
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Virgin No More (Book Review, Part 2)
I just finished reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. I read Go Set a Watchman when it first came out last month, and read it before reading the beloved old favorite. And despite all the drama, histrionics and harrumphing by TKAM’s defenders of the holy tract and the way things have always been, I must say, I don’t see the issue. Atticus Finch is a racist. How is that shocking? Small-town Alabama, in the Great Depression (TKAM) or in the fifties (GSAW), was racist. It’s still quite racist, from what I hear and read. (I’ll be traveling there in October and will give a first-hand…
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The Cause of Conscience: Go Set a Watchman (Book Review, Part 1)
(WARNING: Spoilers) I have never read To Kill a Mockingbird. This is cause for alarm among you many literate people, but you needn’t think me unlettered. In high school I read Poe, Shakespeare, JD Salinger and Carson McCullers; lots of plays, many short stories, and certainly some fat summer beach reads, too (The Thorn Birds, Jaws, Roots, Shogun and Hotel, to name a few). In college I majored in journalism and had no cause for deep American reading, and no affinity for Southern lit, but I did read Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner. I went on to study early 20th-century British literature for my master’s degree, and drank my fill…
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Book Review: On Writing (Stephen King)
You’d think I had other things to do, but I just reread this how-to and wanted to share some thoughts while they were still fresh in my mind. I’m a great re-reader of books (see last Monday’s blog), and needed a kick in the pants this month to get me back on track with my revisions. Herewith, my review of SK’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Stephen King began writing his book on the craft of writing to delve into the language and show fledgling writers something about how it’s done, or how he does it, anyway. Midway through the manuscript, he was gravely injured in a well-publicized…
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Twice as Nice: On Reading Books Again
I like to re-read my books. I mean, a lot. Once a year, some of them. This week I re-read an old favorite: 84 Charing Cross Road, along with its sequel (in the same book!), The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. This is a wonderfully funny and sweet true story, told in correspondence between a New York playwright-freelance writer, and a bookshop employee in London. 84 Charing Cross was the address of the bookstore, Marks & Co. They began their correspondence in 1949 and it ends after 20 years — I won’t tell you how. But it was made into a wonderful movie with Anthony Hopkins and Ann Bancroft. See it,…
