While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below blockbuster YA author Justine Larbalestier praises the magnificent El Ateneo of Buenos Aires’ Barrio Norte. The most beautiful bookshop I have ever seen is El Ateneo in Buenos Aires. It’s a refurbished grand theatre and as you can see from this photograph . . .
While I focus on things other than blogging this month, I’m running a series on independent bookstores. Below Liz B. praises Portland, Maine’s Casco Bay Books. A few years ago, I moved from Portland, Maine, to the other Portland, you know, the one with Powell’s. I live in the city that houses one of the most amazing bookstores in the . . .
An hour ago I would have said my week couldn’t get any worse. I would have been sorely mistaken. Terrible news: The great Grace Paley, feminist, activist, and until today one of our best living short story writers, has died. She was 84. Leora Skolkin-Smith (whose fiction Paley created an imprint to publish) sent word in email. “The last thing . . .
Many, many thanks to everyone who came out in the rain last Friday night to hear Rupert Thomson read from and discuss his latest novel, Death of a Murderer, at McNally Robinson. He was charming and smart, and we had a nice crowd, at least 15% of whom — or should that be which? — were bloggers. Beforehand I met . . .