Queen Anne Book Company: A Sucessful Reading and Book Signing

I want to send out a huge thank you to the Queen Anne Book Company for hosting my first book reading and signing in Seattle. I told stories from all three of my books and I'm happy to say that the audience was laughing and hooting along with me. It was a beautiful evening on their private patio and I loved every minute of it.

Currently my books are available online:

Moments of Delight

Paris: Delight in the City of Light

Finding Delight: Ideas & Inspiration to Enhance Everyday Life

I will start work on my 4th title, Finding Delight in the Pacific Northwest, this summer. My mind is whirling with content and I can't wait to share it with you.

Reading and Restoring on GoodReads.com

Reading and Thinking are two of my favorite ways to spend my time on cold winter days (usually baking is happening at the same time - see the Orange Curd with Shortbread Dipping Stick earlier this month.)

I want to recommend a website (and "app" if you use them) called GoodReads.com. It is an online bookshelf where you can keep track of books you've read (I can never remember the author's name, this website helps!), books you want to read (where else can you keep track of friend's suggestions) and find books that your friends are reading.

The app version lets you scan barcodes, so when I am browsing in a bookstore, I can "scan" any book I want to read later and it stores it in my "want to read" section.  I just love it.

You can find your friends (if you want) and follow authors (pick me!) - it's fun.

Two of my favorite books that I have read lately are:

Sugar Queen by Sarah Allen Addison (a quirky, half-magical story of a woman gaining the confidence to live her own life. It also revolves around a controlling mother, the love of candy bars and a new-found appreciation for helping your friends)

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (a fascinating story of a woman's power to help her customers - she's a florist- by sending "meaning or intent" through the combination of flowers in the arrangement. It is also filled with love (maternal and romantic), the foster system (where she was raised) and scrappy determination to learn.  This is the book that made me want to drive to California "to fix some things."  

Family Book Club

Am I sparking your imagination?  I saw this stone arch and a two track road winding into the distance and knew that you had to see it.  It could be the cover of a great book, don't you think? 

When I was at my husband's family reunion, there was a great moment when the kids (boys and girls age 12-18) were clamoring for my attention.  I casually asked them for recommendations of books they thought I should read and the floodgates opened.  I kept track of the title, author, and which child was recommending it on a "notepad" on my iPhone and the more titles I wrote down, the more they seemed to come up with.  It was magic.

A big part of this great family moment was the fact that I valued their opinion.  I was looking them in the eye and giving them the chance to affect me.  They were "pitching" their favorite books, hoping that I would read them and be impacted the way they were.

I proposed a Reunion Book Club (our reunion is every 2 years with family coming from Minnesota, Texas, Utah, Michigan and Virginia) and one of the teen boys suggested that we manage the group on Facebook - I love it!  I promised to transcribe the reading list (to the Reunion Book Club FB page) so that the kids could refer to it to read any books they might have missed.  The kids said they would check the page to see my progress and offer encouragement.  Yowza, I've got a lot of reading to do!  But this was a precious connection and I'll do anything to keep it.  

Would the teens in your family like to have a book club?

Secret Garden

I read The Secret Garden when I was about eleven years old.  I loved the idea of a neglected garden coming to life.  When I was reading, I felt like I was tending the garden with the children and seeing the results.  I couldn't think of anything lovelier than quiet refuge populated by birds and blooms.  If you know a little girl in this age range, I recommend this inspiring book!

When I was in England, staying near Gloucestershire, Dan and I were invited to take a peek at the grounds of the Manor House associated with the Frampton Court Estate, where we were staying.  While we were walking around the expansive gardens, the owner came out and welcomed us onto his property.  I thought that we might be intruding, but he was happy to show us around and we found that we had so much in common.  When he heard that we watched "Foyle's War" on DVD in America, he knew we were kindred spirits.

This is the arched brick doorway into his secret garden.  Isn't it lovely!  There was a hitch in my breath when I came around the corner and saw it.  An entrance to a garden that comes straight out of my imagination.     

A Beautiful Ending

Sometimes we all need a sunset to provide a beautiful ending to an otherwise hectic day. 

A sunset is a natural conclusion to the day - it says you've done all you can do today, go get some rest so that you can start again tomorrow.  This is when I like to pick up a good book and relax for a while.

If you are looking for some reading suggestions, trying looking at the website, Reading Group Guides.  It is loaded with book club "favorites" lists, plot summaries and discussion questions.  You can even look up books by theme (women and friendship, books set in foreign locales, memoirs) - I'm sure you can find some titles that interests you.  Good night and good reading!  

Escape

Escape into a good book, that is. This month my "escape" is into the stack of books I have been wanting to read. At the moment, I am reading 3 different books: a nonfiction title about a group of friends that support each other in their quest to be "writers" (The Wednesday Sisters), a novel set in New York City in the 1940's about a woman's struggle between marriage vs career (Lucia, Lucia) and a character-filled saga of life and love in a small Irish village (Echos). I can't recommend any quite yet, as I am still in the throws of all three plots, but I can say this, I am enjoying myself immensely.

Take some time to let your mind "escape" this Winter, you'll be glad you did.

Book Club Books

This is the type of bookshelf I am drawn to...packed with knitting projects, recipes and decorating ideas.

But tonight I must focus! My book club is meeting tonight (first at a cozy restaurant for dinner & conversation) then on to a bookstore to chose our books for the next six months.

Each member is expected to come with suggestions of books for us to read and why. We'll pool all of the titles and then vote for the ones that sound the best to us. I have been polling my friends and have a few suggestions up my sleeve.

Have you started using Shelfari yet? It is a free online "book shelf" that lets you keep track of books you've read, are reading and want to read. I love it because I can never remember the titles/authors of books once I have read them and it keeps my literary history all in one place. Try it!

The Shell Seekers

Earlier this month, I wrote about making a shadow box to display your shell collection and I titled it "Shell Seekers."

So many friends said, "Oh...The Shell Seekers!" knowing that it is one of my favorite books by Rosamunde Pilcher.

Have you read it? It is set in Cornwall, England and spans a family over 3 generations. It is filled with love, family lore and friends stopping by for tea. 

I always tend to reread it in March when I am longing for the garden and picnics on enamelware plates. In one of the opening scenes, Penelope Keeling straightens the kitchen after breakfast and then heads out into the garden to check on her roses. It is my kind of fiction! 
I'm including a photo from my shell seeking. Can you see the white shell near the bottom that is filled with bubbles from the last ocean wave? So pretty.