Reading in the Garden

A Key to the City of Light Paris is a magical place.  It’s a place of good food, art, fashion, love, and history. Known for the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc de Triumph, and more, it’s one of the most beautiful and one of the most visited cities in the world. It has an undeniable draw, an allure that keeps tourists coming in droves. For Genevieve, going to Paris is more than a vacation, in The Paris Key . After her marriage crumbles in California, Genevieve moves to Paris and takes over her late uncle’s locksmith shop in an attempt to start a new life for herself. Having spent time in Paris in 1997 after her mother’s death, she has a special connection to this city.   But just as it brings back memories of her mother, it also unlocks unexpected secrets.     Medici Fountain in Luxembourg Gardens. By Francis Bourgouin - originally posted to Flickr as DSCN0141, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wik

Innocent Enemies In a terse, effective prose that is truly gripping, this lean novel delivers the story of a Japanese-American family’s ordeal in an internment camp during WWII.   After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese-Americans and immigrants living in the U.S. became enemy aliens.   They were ordered to leave their homes and lives behind as they were rounded up to live as prisoners in internment camps.   It didn’t matter that these people were innocent American citizens; their crime was being of Japanese descent during an ugly war. In this novel, the lives of a Berkeley, California family is turned upside down.   The father is incarcerated on the evening of December 7, 1941.   Soon his wife and two kids are sent to the Topaz War Relocation Center with thousands of others in Utah.   There they are held captive in barracks for three and a half years. Their rights are stripped and their loyalty is tested.   After the war, evacuees are sent home to re

An “Adventurous” Childhood The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is finally going to be released in the theaters!   This is a book that I read years ago and what a book it is!  It is a memoir that seemed to take the literary world by storm when it was first released in 2005 and still captures audiences today.  Even though I read it years ago, it made such an indelible impression that it's still one of the first books I recommend if someone asks me for a good book suggestion.  My son, husband, and daughter have now read it at my urging and they were as blown away as I was.  My sisters, mother, and most of my book club members had read it years ago, too — all with the same reaction. It's no surprise that we, along with so many other readers, are excitedly awaiting the movie release on August 11, 2017.  It stars Brie Larson as Jeannette, Woody Harrelson as her dad, and Naomi Watts as her mom. I'm hoping the movie will live up to the book. For those who have not

Open for Business After touring and admiring so many Little Free Libraries, it’s no surprise that I wanted one of my own.   Well, this summer my dream came true when my husband built me my own Little Free Library!   The inspiration and centerpiece of the little library is my sister’s rotted 100+-year-old basement window, which my husband painstakingly restored. Be sure and stop by my library and others if you’re in the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho area. I’ve added my location on the Little Free Library Map:   https://littlefreelibrary.org/ourmap/   Look us up by zip code 83814. What is a Little Free Library ? Below is an excerpt I lifted right from a LFL flyer. Although the concept of book exchanges has been around for ages, the term “little free library” was first coined in 2010 when Tod Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, as a tribute to his mother, built a replica of a one-room schoolhouse, filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard with a sign that said “FREE