This post is a tribute to Thornton Wilder. April 17 was his birthday. He would have been 125 years old. Wilder was the only person to win a Pulitzer Prize for both literature and drama. He recieved the Pulitzer for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) and the plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). Do you remember
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: THE REPORTERS WHO TOOK ON A WORLD AT WAR by Deborah Cohen Cohen give readers an inside glimpse of the oft-times reckless reporters who covered the brewing crisis in Europe prior to and during WWII. Before we had 24/7 TV coverage, these American reporters were the sole source of news from the front. The Wall Street Journal says “(Ms.
This time of year, many book clubs decide which books they are going to read for the coming year. This is true if the club uses a ‘school’ calendar with the year ending with May and begining with September. Usually, when someone suggests a book for the entire club, that person has read the book herself. Sometimes that is even a requirement. There are, however,
Most of you are members of a book club; and you notice at the end of many books, the editor will include discussion questions for the book clubs. Frankly, I’ve never been impressed with most of the questions because they don’t seem to provoke critical thinking. Nevertheless, these questions often serve as a starting point that can lead to other questions. I happened upon an
Grandparents are certainly important family members. No scientific study is needed to verify that fact. When your grandparents are the President and the First Lady, however, it’s worth writing about. Agreed? That is exactly what Jenna Bush Hager has done with her new book Everything Beautiful in Its Time. The book is a collection of journal entries Hager began writing in 2018 when her grandmother
Do you remember when Linda Malcolm reviewed a book entitled The Windsor Knot? Linda enjoyed the light and clever mystery about Queen Elizabeth solving crimes while carrying out her officail duties. Intriguing, isn’t it? Now the book is out in paperback, for those of you who still read actual books, AND the author SJ Bennett has a sequel entitled All the Queen’s Men. There are
Three books are that are relevent to the crisis in Ukraine are worth mentioning for those of you who like to explore situations in depth. (See blog entry on The Gates of Europe.) Two of the books are non-fiction and the third is considered historical fiction. Lessons from the Edge was written by Marie Yovanovitch. Remember her? She was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until
I recently received an e-mail from Linda Malcolm telling me about a Mt. Pleasant author, Lindy Carter, whose new book The Rice Birds was published by Evening Post Books In Charleston. Below is a description of the book from the publisher: In 1849, twin sisters fleeing Ireland’s famine arrive at New York’s seaport. Only Nora is allowed to get on the boat to South Carolina
By Grant SniderMarch 18, 2022 Grant Snider is a cartoonist, author and illustrator. His next book, “The Art of Living: Reflections on Mindfulness and the Overexamined Life,” will be published in April.
Today at the Sandcastle Book Club meeting, Martha Zink led the discussion of The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn. The novel was based on real women who worked as code-breakers at Betchley Park during and after World War II. Martha printed photos of the ‘real’ people who were featured in the book. Several club members shared their experiences touring Bletchley Park. Quinn has a new
