Blog
Soooo of course I have a funny turkey story, and it's one some of you readers may remember. A few years ago I bought a frozen turkey and following my husband's instructions I put it in the fridge to defrost. After all, he is an engineer while I am the writer; I figured he knew such things. Soooo it's late the night before Thanksgiving and I am IMing with a friend and she says, well, at least my turkey is defrosted. I get thinking about MY turkey.
When I am not reading, or when I want to vege out and multi-task I love watching movies and there are a few television shows I gravitate to as well. It's interesting how much my viewing mirrors my reading choices. I like smart, snappy writing and tight plots.
When readers left off with my August 24th Bookreporter.com newsletter I was all over my plan to have four suitcases for this trip. 1. Clothes 2. Books. 3. Knitting 4. Overnight bag for the hotel. I figured this system would compartmentalize my interests and assure me that I never would be asked again to have my "big suitcase" ready first. Well, I did pack the four bags and felt like Audrey Hepburn albeit in turquoise not black as I stood outside the car poised with my bags.
This week I feel like I have a third son whose name is Harry Potter. Around our house, around the office and well, just about everywhere you look, it's all about Harry. While the news was this week was all about leaks and early shipments, I wish the focus was where it should be --- on the fact that millions of people will be spending this weekend doing what my husband has titled, "Harrybernating," reading Harry Potter.
On thelast weekend of my vacation I read Jodi Picoult's book, NINETEEN MINUTES. I always like Jodi's writing and thus I was looking forward to seeing how she handled her subject matter about a shooting at a fictitious high school in New Hampshire.
I never seem to get fully away on vacations. Instead I usually just move work locations and reply to email a lot more slowly while getting more reading/knitting/relaxing in than usual. It's why I love going down to the Outer Banks. The beach is a short bike ride away, the deck is steps from the door and I can work for a couple of hours a day in a more relaxing setting. I love my work and thus really never feel a need to totally disconnect from it though pulling back is just heavenly. And having time to read without interruption is a total pleasure.
The Virginia Festival of the Book gets better and better every year. I just love it. This was my sixth year of attending this event and each time my trip gets longer and longer as I want to spend more time there. This year I arrived on Thursday in time to have dinner with some friends at one of the terrific restaurants on the Downtown Mall. Cuisine is an art form in Charlottesville, which always surprises me for some reason. There's great food at amazingly affordable prices at least by New York standards.
One of the nice things about attending book festivals is that I get to see parts of the country that I might otherwise not venture to. My trip two weeks ago to Columbia, South Carolina for the South Carolina Book Festival was an illustration of that. The event was held downtown at the convention center just a few blocks from the state capitol, the building that you may remember got a ton of press in recent years as it still flies the Confederate flag though these days it's positioned in front instead of atop the dome.
On Monday, Martin Luther King Day, I logged onto Google and saw an illustration on their home page that had five children playing jump rope. Looking closely at the drawing I saw that they obviously were from different races and the spirit was one of comraderie. I smiled seeing this drawing as I have found it to be matching what I have been seeing evolve in this country --- children do not see race the way previous generations do.
I have friends who cannot believe my idea of a really fun weekend is to attend a book fair. A few weeks ago I was getting my hair cut and I mentioned that I was headed to Miami. Folks gathered round telling me about their favorite places in South Beach, the hottest restaurants and the best nightclubs. I told them I was not doing any of that. I was attending the Miami Book Fair. They looked at me like I was daft. I went back to going over the author lineup and planning my weekend.
