Quote de jour
"I write discover what I know."
~Flanner O'Connor

All I know is that I've been reading too much and not writing enough. Is spring and the dizzying force of change to blame? Outside my bathroom, the room with a view series unfurls with a vengeance. Another week and the neighbors will disappear behind a cloak of leaves.I like my privacy so it's a good thing, to quote Martha Stewart's favorite catch phrase. It was not so good to read about her in a memoir by her former BFF Mariana Pasternak in The Best of Friends. Ms. Pasternak does a good job chronicling their twenty year friendship of parties and globetrotting in all its sour and sweet moments. The lives of the very rich never cease to amaze me. If I had Martha's millions and a friend with way less, I would happily pay for my friend to join me any trip. But not Martha, who lend (with interest) $10,000 to Mariana so she could join Martha on a trip of Martha's choosing no less. It no wonder the friendship eventually frays gets blown to smithereens once she testifies about Martha in court.

I tried to like, I wanted to like Monica Ali's novel In the Kitchen. After all, she's compared to Dickens and touted as "the voice of a generation" but I didn't. Maybe I've been reading too much and have mush for brains, but is this a good sentence?This is the first sentence from In the Kitchen: When he looked back,he felt that the death of the Ukrainian was the point at which things began to fall apart.
 
Things went from bad to worse with The Hole We're In a novel by Gabrielle Zevin. I admit it was late and it's never a good idea to begin a new novel when bleary eyes beg for sleep. The only reason I chose it was Oprah magazine named it "a book to watch" and it landed on The New York Times Book Review Editor's List. Plus, Ms. Zevin is a very funny YA writer. I did take a peek at her quirky blog and website. Ya gotta love a writer who posts bad reviews of her books. So, don't listen to me, you may love this book, and don't feel sorry for her. She must have the best mom in the world who bakes gorgeous cakes with the covers of her books (see a photo of this one at her blog). Gabrielle Zevin


 The primary color trend on magazine covers continues. I couldn't resist having a wee bit of fun with these titles. Now off to string some sentences together in manuscript form.