Kathleen

Early in my teaching career, Meg Cabot wrote The Princess Diaries series for tweens and teens. The books are about a New York City teenager with frizzy hair and big feet who’s minding her own business when she learns she’s royalty. …

You probably know that Oprah Winfrey picked The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead for her book club in September. For some readers, Oprah’s attention is a deterrent, but not for me. From Charles Dickens to Jane Hamilton, a lot of my favorites are …

I felt the tears come thirty pages from the end of Ann Patchett’s latest novel, Commonwealth. They welled just inside my lower eyelids for the duration. When I finished the book – after a long, dreamy spell of reading – …

I’ve been meaning to read Patti Smith’s National Book Award Winner for years. Finally, I downloaded Just Kids on Audible and quickly became immersed in the poet’s low and steady, yet evocative narration. The Story: Smith chronicles her relationship with the artist Robert …

Several of us at LQ are reading Liane Moriarty right now. Janna and Joli seem to like her well enough, but I! I adore her. And, I’ve loved the performances of Caroline Lee, the narrator of her most recent audiobooks. In …

Boy, am I ever familiar with the concept of the Big Thing.  It’s the project that alternately exhilarates and paralyzes. It’s the sort-of crazy ambitious idea that requires willpower, courage, accountability, AND is ideally embarked upon for “The Right Reasons.” My life is …

One thing I enjoy about my reading life (and my viewing habits) is that I fall in love with a wide range of texts. I love Charles Dickens and Sophie Kinsella, Masterpiece Theater and The Bachelor, The New Yorker and US …

In 1911, fourteen year-old Joan Skraggs finds herself trapped at home on a run-down farm, working tirelessly for her cruel father. He pulls her from school and requires her, “an ox of a girl” and “ugly” in his estimation, to mend, …

I’m writing a book.  Can you even believe that? It’s been my lifelong dream to be a novelist, and I’ve finally decided to take action.  According to one of the guides I’ll describe below, I’m supposed to have a ten-word sentence …

Ten or so years ago, I completely lost myself in a novel called The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. I don’t remember many of the novel’s details – it’s the intersecting stories of people connected to a work of …