Audiobook recommendations

I’m new to listening.  It’s only recently that I’ve begun to intersperse eye-reading with ear-reading.  And it’s taken discipline, keeping my mind on every spoken word, rather then letting it wander, as sometimes happens with a book.  But for those times when you can’t be glued to the physical page – like when you’re driving…

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To what are we most committed?

Commitments is my 42nd child – but every single child of mine is special to me. Their birthdays are cause for celebration, which is what I’m doing today. I’m celebrating the birth of Commitments as an eBook. It’s about time! Commitments was first published in 1988 and has been issued in every other format but…

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My Recent Reading, Part I

There are many things on my to-blog-about list, like multi-tasking, cat videos, and food expiration dates. But you read my blogs because you read my books, and right now, in the thick of the summer reading season, I need to blog about books – specifically the ones I’ve read. Summer is a great reading time…

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Does the ending suit you?

I’ve done a lot of reading this summer. I’ve also spent a lot of time studying reader reviews on Amazon, as well as taking part in discussion groups on Goodreads. Two of the books I’ve read, in particular – Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman and Lisa Genova’s Inside the O’Briens – had endings with which readers…

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Good reading

There’s reading. And then there’s READING. The first is a solitary endeavor from start to finish, done on the subway, or curled up in a chair, or in bed. The second adds a step at the end: discussing a book with someone else who has read it. That person may be a single individual. It…

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I won’t grow up!

Peter Pan had it right. If growing up means no more fun and adventure, I don’t want to grow up either. I like fun and adventure – like doing new things – like challenging myself. I like doing something I never imagined myself doing. Oh yeah, sometime it’s daunting. I have a comfort zone, just…

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Barbara’s life plan …

Ha! Do you really think I have a life plan? Oh, I did once. I assumed I’d have my parents all my life, like every other child I knew. Then my mother died, and reality hit. Believe it or not, I was the only child in my whole third grade class who didn’t have two…

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BD and the Big Apple

I used to go to New York a lot. The first time was when I was eleven, when my dad introduced my sisters and me to the place. We stayed at the Commodore Hotel over Grand Central Station, and he took us to the Empire State Building, the Broadway production of “Peter Pan,” Rockefeller Center,…

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When books mirror life

I have a childhood friend, living far away now, who swears she knows what’s going on in my life from my newest book. She is certainly right where Blueprints is concerned.  During the early months of the writing, in real life I was gutting and redoing the bathroom off my bedroom – totally fitting when…

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Where’s your comfort zone?

I had a heart-to-heart once with the guy who does my hair. He’d been doing it for a long time, but we were increasingly at odds about style, cut, and color, with him urging me in one direction and my urging him in another. Finally, seeming exasperated, he said, “Barbara, you need to get out…

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