Great House: A Novel
My glass desk seems suddenly boring. Although, it is the one where my iMac gleams, where two mics suspend over it, where Nicole Krauss and I discuss her book, Great House.
Brilliant book. A magnificent painting of lives with brush strokes that don’t tell all. Only haunt. Read the rest of this entry »
Bodily HarmTonight I met with the rest of the committee that put on the 2010 Willamette Writers Conference – and is gearing up for 2011. Bob Dugoni’s name came up. And, coincidentally, before I knew we were meeting, I had decided Bob’s show would air today. Bob Dugoni blew the freakin’ doors off during his speech at the August Willamette Writers conference. If Bob returns this year – and we hope he will – we will book him a double room for his lectures. He was so hot, Read the rest of this entry »
RoomIf you have a five-year old, you know how pivotal that year is. A bridge between fantasy and reality, between playing with anything and going to school where you play with what you are given, between trusting just nearby adults and trusting an expanding world. Trust. What is really real.
Five is a touch-point. You remember being five in your own life. What happened then may have altered your direction in life. It did for me. It did for Jack, in this bestselling novel by Emma Donoghue. Read the rest of this entry »
My Lost DaughterHow do you know if your kid is on drugs, clinically depressed or just bummed out by life’s hairpin turns?
That’s Judge Lily Forrester’s situation when her 28-year old daughter Shana – just weeks from graduating with a law degree from Stanford – gets dumped by her boyfriend, and seems dangerously messed-up. In Nancy Taylor Rosenberg’s novel My Lost Daughter, Lily makes an unbelievably foolish choice for Shana. Read the rest of this entry »
Seems I’ve been attracted lately to novels that, in some way, address babies and children. In a word – family! Chandra Hoffman’s novel, Chosen, seduced me instantly with the topic.
There’s a sweet tone to the book – Chloe’s mostly – even though Hoffman also tells the story in the voices of Penny, Paul, and Jason. A pregnant woman, the husband whose wife finally gives birth, and Penny’s difficult boyfriend. We also see Francie’s posts on the adoption site – Francie, a woman who has not been able to have a child of her own.
Chloe is an adoption worker who handles both the desperate parents wanting a child, willing to do anything to have a child, and the frantic parents-to-be, who are not sure whether to (1) end it, (2) have it and adopt it out, and (3) have it and keep it. The waters keep getting muddied. A lot. Especially when you blend in meth mothers and the violent cons who get them pregnant. Especially when one baby goes missing. Read the rest of this entry »
The Atlas of LoveMaybe I loved The Atlas of Love because it felt like a friend’s journal I’d picked up and accidentally opened to the first page. And couldn’t stop reading it until page 35 or so, still standing, and then it was too late. So I read the whole thing, feeling guilty, as if I’d eaten a carton of Ben and Jerry’s at one sitting. Not that I’ve ever done that. But I also felt pleased, because of the light humor laced in with the literary configurations.
Maybe I loved The Atlas of Love because Read the rest of this entry »
InsatiableThe only thing I regret about Insatiable - is that I waited two months to read it. It’s been in my hands all this while…
101 Things I Learned in Film SchoolNeil Landau says 101 Things I Learned in Film School is designed to inspire you to write – it’s not intended to encourage you to skip film school.
Neil was in Portland on book tour a few months ago, and I aired his interview today because his book pulls together two aspects of a major Portland event. Read the rest of this entry »
Live to TellLisa Gardner marveled over my towering bookcases, even more so when she realized they each held a double row of books, and then again when she saw Chelsea Cain’s books prominently displaced. Lisa loves Chelsea’s books. After Lisa left, I positioned Live to Tell right next to Chelsea’s serial killer series.
Two brilliant women thriller writers. Lisa mentioned a study that was done a few months ago, Read the rest of this entry »
InnocentNew York Times Bestselling author Scott Turow – who broke onto the list with his debut Presumed Innocent about twenty years ago – revealed how – after all these years – he felt compelled to write Innocent. We talked on Open Book with Diana Page Jordan today.
At first, Scott says, he didn’t want to write a sequel. He blasted himself with questions, that basically had to do with comparing his stunning first book with the sequel he might write. For years, he resisted the sequel.
But finally, he says, an image grew in his head. Read the rest of this entry »
