Schuyler's Monster

I read this book a few years ago, and it was terrific. As a parent, it will make you count your blessings.

Schuyler's Monster

Christmas in NYC

Christmas in NYC is truly magical. I love to go visit all of the amazing holiday window displays, and there is always free entertainment to enjoy.

Lord & Taylor had their window unveil with a song from Broadway favorite, the adorable Kristin Chenoweth, currently performing in Promises, Promises with Sean Hayes. She sang a lovely version of Silver Bells,  backed by the Youth Choir of New York. She was great with the kids, posing for pictures, really bringing them into the performance. Those kids were terrific, and it was like a cool episode of Glee. 

Kristin singing with the choir

Youth Choir of New York

Kristin being interviewed for TV

John Legend performed at Bloomingdales window reveal and he wowed the crowd with seven songs, including fan favorites Green Light, Save Room for My Love, Ordinary People, Christmas classics The Christmas Song, and This Christmas, as well as two songs from his new CD, Wake Up! and the song he wrote for the documentary Waiting for Superman called Shine On. Legend is very handsome, and he has many fans here in the city. 

Opus 118, a group of student musicians from the Harlem School of Music, played some lovely holiday music before Legend came on. They were awesome, and I loved their mashup of Santa Claus is Coming to Town/Jingle Bells. 

Opus 118, string musicians from The Harlem School of Music

John Legend at the piano

Everything Is Going to Be Great

Everything Is Going to Be Great by Rachel Shukert
Published by Harper Perennial
Trade Paperback $13.99

If you've ever dreamed of traveling to Europe with no money or any real idea of how you are going to live, this is the book for you. If you have a young daughter who wants to do that, do not read this book, it will scare the hell out of you.

Subtitled An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour, Shukert recounts her many adventures traveling around Europe, first as the member of an acting troupe with a sketchy agenda, and then on her own, courtesy of an unstamped passport which allowed her to travel unfettered throughout Europe.

Shukert is a very funny, albeit somewhat vulgar, writer. I read this on the city bus traveling around Manhattan and found myself keeping the book as closed as possible so as not to offend any Upper East Side matrons who may be trying to sneak a peek at what I was reading.

She writes very freely of her many sexual exploits, which often coincided with her drinking to excess. One really crazy night had her doing her best to avoid participating in a three-way with some very scary, excitable Italian men she did not know well. It was a scene a young, Jewish Lucy Riccardo might find herself in, all that was missing was Ethel, and Shukert had me laughing like crazy as she described extricating herself from this potentially dangerous situation.

I loved her mother, whose favorite pastime was to send Rachel "large manila envelopes containing scraps of information that she feels need to be brought to my attention: notices culled from the local newspaper reporting that my high school boyfriend has once again been imprisoned for car theft; excerpts from the latest sermon torn from the synagogue bulletin; photocopied magazine articles detailing gruesome diseases from which she believes I might be at risk."

On one card, her mom wrote- "Remember- having multiple sexual partners significantly increases your immediate risk of developing cancer of the cervix. Please consider." Hilarious!

Shukert includes in the text helpful tips for living abroad, including what to do "When Someone Mistakes You For a Prostitute", "Are You About to Be Sex-trafficked?" and "Snappy Comebacks To Loaded Questions" such as
1. Why are Americans so fat?
2. Are Americans religious because they are stupid, or just ignorant? and
3. Why do Americans cruelly refuse to provide public health care for all?

There is lots of heart in this memoir, and I liked Shukert's adventures in Amsterdam, living with her friends, Jeroen and Mattis. She gives the reader a good flavor for what it is like living in a foreign city: the loneliness, the difficulty in getting a job, the joy of riding a bike as a means of transportation.

Everything Will Be Great will appeal to mostly a younger crowd, and for those lucky enough to have traveled to Europe, they will chuckle with recognition.

Rating 3 stars of 5

The Hand That First Held Mine

The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover $25
352 pages

I read Maggie O'Farrell's novel The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox a few years back and found it a haunting story. I looked forward to reading her next book, The Hand That First Held Mine.


It's not a book that grabbed me right away, but I'm glad I stuck with it because the resolution of the story was heartbreaking. O'Farrell expertly weaves two stories together, and I didn't know where she going with it until about three quarters of the way through, and then I was devastated.

The story alternates between Lexie, a young girl who leaves her family in the country to move to the big city after she meets a mysterious older man on the road outside her house. Innes Kent becomes her lover and mentor as she works for his magazine. Innes is married, but that doesn't stop them.

Years later we met Ted and Elina. Elina has just gone through a traumatic birth, losing four pints of blood in the process. She has a difficult time caring for the baby, but Ted must go back to work as an editor. He worries about Elina and the baby, and then he begins to have blackouts. The birth of his child has triggered something in him, something he has repressed.

Ted tries to put together what happened in his childhood that could be causing his troubles today. He remembers a lovely woman holding his hand, but it isn't the hand of his mother, who is a cold woman. As Ted tries to put the pieces together, the story lines meet.

O'Farrell is a marvelous story teller, and one passage just flat-out knocked me out. A mother, upon knowing she is drowning and will not see her young son grow thinks,

"She would not see him grow as tall as her then taller. She would not be there when someone first broke his heart or when he first drove a car or when he went out alone into the world or when he saw, for the first time, what he would do, how he would love and with whom and where. She would not be there to knock sand out of his shoes when he came off the beach. She would not see him again."

As a mother, those words just devastated me. It is every mother's nightmare.

I liked the character growth of Lexie, and that surprised me as I didn't like her at first. I also enjoyed that I didn't see where this book would end up, that is unusual for me, and I think that shows the skill of the author.

Rating 4 of 5 stars.

Rainn Wilson & SoulPancake at Barnes & Noble

Rainn Wilson is known by many people as Dwight Schrute from TV's The Office. He is also involved in a really cool website called SoulPancake, where people are encouraged to "Speak your mind. Unload your questions. Figure out what it means to be human."

He and the SoulPancake team, Devon Gundry (who also sang two songs), Golriz Lucina and Shabnam Mogharabi put the website into book form titled (what else?) SoulPancake- Chew on Life's Big Questions. It is a celebration of humanity, art and spirituality, and it was a very joyful party last night.

Wilson spoke for awhile, answered questions, made people laugh, and played the tambourine while Gundry and Andy Grammer sang a rousing version of A Man of Constant Sorrow. I think that many people came to see Dwight Schrute, and Wilson was gracious as he answered questions about the show, even though he came to talk about his other project.

Rainn's dad, Bob Wilson, was there last night, and Rainn said such lovely things about his dad that the audience "awwed" when he gushed about how much he loved his dad.

It was a wonderful event, lasting over an hour, and the joy that these creative people have for life was contagious in that room. I think they made quite a few converts to their philosophy of life. SoulPancake- Chew on Life's Big Questions is a great book to share with family, friends at a party, and especially college students. It will stimulate your mind and get you to think about things like Art & Creativity, God & Religion, Science & Technology (all chapter titles), in a new way.

 (Postscript- Rainn kept talking about his friend David, who was sitting in the back of the room so I couldn't see him. At the end of the program, David walked up to the table, and I saw that David is David Costabile. He was fantastic as a bad cop in season one of TV's Damages. When he walked by me, I told him how fantastic he was in that show. He creeped me out every time he was on screen!)

Andy Grammer has a terrific voice

Rainn, Devon & Andy

SoulPancake team

Nothing beats an evening with Adriana Trigiani

I'm always excited about a new book from Adriana Trigiani. Not only do I know that I will enjoy her writing, but I wait with great anticipation for her book tour dates to be posted so I can plan to hear her talk.

You know that the evening will feature her pointing out her favorite people in the audience: her sister Toni, her hardworking assistant Kelly, her editor Lee, various team members from Harper Collins, and several friends (including a late-arriving Richie, who informed us he was "on the lamb"), cousins ("Hi, Antonia!") and former coworkers ("There's Terri Guaneri who I worked with on The Cosby Show. Please don't bother her- she's important!")

Trigiani says she could introduce most people in the audience, and that is true. She scans the audience looking for people she has met, and she remembers them even if she's only met them briefly. She looked at me and said- "You're the blogger from BEA!"

No other author shows such affection to her fans. She spotted a young man with a slouchy hat sitting in the front row, and said "Jake Gyllenhal- what are you doing here?" He looked out of place, but she knew she must know him. She prodded him until he told her his first name, and she said "You're the writer!" He had been in email communication with Adriana, and even never having met him, she knew him right away.

She pointed at some ladies in front and asked them if they were from New York. When they said yes, she said they she could tell they had that New York attitude- "I'll cut ya".

Then Adriana launches into her talk, which can cover many topics, including:

• A woman who gave her a jar of Fire & Ice pickles at an event in Vero Beach. They were so good, she put the recipe on her website. http://adrianatrigiani.com/recipes.html
• Her visit to the beauty parlor, where she saw this woman who looked so sensational, Adriana had to find out her secret. (Her husband left her, and after the initial shock, she realized she was finally free and lost 20 pounds.)
• "I'm Catholic. I'm Italian. I LOVE a good raffle!"
• Daughters-in-law NEVER get jewelry left to them. "If they're lucky, they get a cracked platter."
• A hilarious story illustrating the importance of blood family to Italians, told to her about a woman whose daughter was having surgery. When the surgeon brought papers to be signed by the next of kin, the woman's husband of 42 years, the angry mother said "Hey, I'M her mother. I'm her family, I'll sign the papers. Who is he to us?"

Finally, we got around to the topic of Adriana's new book, Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons From My Grandmothers. It's her first non-fiction book, and she spent three years working on this charming book. 

She lovingly tells the story of her two Italian grandmothers. Lucia, called Lucy, came over from Italy with her father, and ended up in Chisholm, Minnesota. Lucy was a seamstress, and her husband Carlo was a shoemaker. They had three children, but Carlo tragically died when he was 39 years old. Lucy raised her children on her own, owned her own business, and never remarried. 

Viola worked in a clothing factory in Pennsylvania when she was fourteen. By the age of sixteen, she was the forelady. She met her husband Michael at the plant, and they married and eventually bought their own factory to manufacture ladies' blouses.

Both women were successful in business, and had an amazing work ethic, which they clearly passed on to their granddaughter Adriana. When asked which grandmother she identified with most, Adriana said Viola, because "she took no prisoners".

But it is Lucy's advice she follows most closely. Lucy told her "Nobody has to see how many times you rip out the hem", which means that no matter how hard you have to work at something to make it perfect, no one has to see how hard you labored at it. 

Both of her grandmothers told her to never retire, and they never did. After Viola sold their factory the year after her husband died, she went back to work at the factory for the new owners.  Viola enjoyed the fact that at the age of 72, she no longer had to pay income taxes. Lucy worked right up until she moved to a nursing home.

The book is not only a love letter to her grandmothers, both fascinating women, but is as Adriana says,  "on a deeper level, a primer on how to live." She distills her grandmothers' advice into different chapters, such as "Security", "Sex and Marriage", "Children" and "Belief".  

Don't Sing at the Table is the perfect book to give to young women just starting out in life. Adriana's grandmothers were remarkable women, and the way they lived their lives is such a wonderful example for women. They worked hard, loved their husbands and their families, and had self-respect. They are the people who made this country great, and they overcame adversity through their sheer will and shining character. 

Being reminded of that during these difficult times is important, and the timing of this book couldn't be better. Read it as a gift to yourself and give copies of it to the women in your life as a gift to them. It will also encourage you to talk to the remarkable women in your life to hear their stories. 

Rating- 4.5 of 5 stars

The Financial Lives of The Poets is emotional, poignant

The Financial Lives of The Poets by Jess Walter
Published by Harper Perennial
Paperback $14.99

I have to admit, a novel titled The Financial Lives of The Poets is not something I would normally rush to read. Why would I care about finance and poets? But since people I respect raved about this book, I gave it a try.

I'm so glad I did! Jess Walter has written a dazzling story of a young suburban family in the throws of the national economic crisis that threatens not only their financial stability but their very existence as a family unit.

Matt left his job as a business writer at a newspaper to follow his dream- a website devoted to financial news, with advice columns written in poetry. Even in the best of times, this sounds like a risky venture. Matt and his wife Lisa take another mortgage on their house to invest in the company, and then the housing market crashes.

Matt goes back to his job at the newspaper, only to be laid off when newspapers begin to lose advertisers and readers. Lisa works at a boring job she hates for little money and expresses her dissatisfaction by buying collectibles that she hopes to resell on Ebay. Now their garage is filled with boxes of junk she is unable to unload.

Their house will soon be in foreclosure, and their children will be forced to leave their lovely Catholic school and go to the dangerous neighborhood public school. Matt's father, who suffers from dementia, has moved in with them after he met a stripper who stole all of his money, and Lisa is contemplating an affair with her old boyfriend. What's a man to do?

After Matt meets up with some young potheads at the 7-11 one night, he becomes enmeshed in their lives. He hangs out with them hoping to forget his troubles. Eventually, as sometimes happens when under the influence of pot, a plan is created that Matt hopes will solve his money problems.

The author writes well for his characters. The disintegrating marriage of Matt and Lisa is sad to watch.

"We're in a perpetual stalemate here; lost. I can see how we got here- after each bad decision, after each failure we quietly logged our blame, our petty resentments; we constructed a case against each other that we never prosecuted. As long as both cases remained unstated, the charges sealed, we had a tacit peace; you don't mention this and I won't mention that, this and that growing and changing and becoming everything, until the only connection between us was this bridge of quiet guilt and recrimination."

While Lisa and Matt fall apart, Matt's relationship with his dad is so touching. Anyone who has someone in their own family with dementia will relate to Matt and his dad, the loving patience Matt shows his father, the loss of a once-proud man's self-reliance.

Fans of Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You should run to get this book. As a woman, I find this glimpse into the male psyche fascinating.  (The cover is even reminiscent of TV's Mad Men opening credits with the falling man.) Matt's poetry is cleverly sprinkled throughout the book, adding an extra dimension for the reader. Walter's look at the economic crisis through the prism of this one family is an emotional, poignant ride.

Rating 4.5 of 5 stars

Thanks to Erica at Harper Perennial for providing a copy of this book for review

ONE DAY by David Nicholls slowly seduces you

One Day by David Nicholls
Published by Vintage Contemporaries
Trade paperback $14.95

British author David Nicholls' novel One Day begins on July 15, 1988 with two university students in Edinburgh, Dexter and Emma, sharing an evening of drink and sex. Dex is from a wealthy family, Emma is not. Dex is handsome, but not overly ambitious, and Emma, not the type of girl who captures men's attention when she walks in the room, is, as Dex says, "is one of those girls who used 'bourgeois' as a term of abuse".

The novel follows Dex and Emma for the next twenty years on the date of July 15th. We watch as they become good friends, but not more than that, although at certain points in time each fancies the other romantically- just not, it seems, at the same time.

Dex becomes a successful television presenter, making good money, dating lots of hot women, drinking way too much, but it's a shallow life. Emma is less successful personally and professionally. The one constant in their lives is their friendship. When they are together, they become more than the sum of their parts, if only they realized it.

As Dex gets older, his looks fade and he is no longer the 'golden boy'. He marries a wealthy woman, but is he happy? Emma's life gets better after she ends a relationship that is not suited to her. She gets a job as a teacher and works on writing a novel.

Nicholls brilliantly captures these two people, and their relationship is one that will be recognizable to many people. He is not afraid to make Dex downright unlikeable much of time, yet he gets us to root for Dex to be a better man. Our heart breaks for Emma, and we just want to see her get the life and love she deserves.

One Day is the kind of book you don't fall in love with right away; it slowly seduces you until you realize by the end how deeply you have fallen in love with it. Dex and Emma will at times infuriate you, make you laugh and break your heart, but you will not forget them, nor will you forget the heartrending end of this near perfect novel.

Rating 4.5 of 5

A modern day ADAM & EVE

Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund
Published by William Morrow
339 pages

One of the oldest stories ever told, that of Adam and Eve, gets a unique remake of sorts in Sena Jeter Naslund's Adam & Eve.

Lucy is in Amsterdam for a scientific conference with her husband Thom, an astrophysicist of renown, who tells Lucy that he has proof of extraterrestrial life. He gives Lucy a memory stick that contains all of his evidence.

Thom is killed by a falling piano, and Lucy is devastated. Still grieving her loss three years later, Lucy is invited to welcome scientists to a conference in Cairo. It is too much for her, and she breaks down on stage.

She meets a young woman who takes Lucy to her father, a scientist Lucy met at the conference. They convince Lucy to smuggle something out of Egypt for them- an alternate version of the book of Genesis that they have found buried.

There are fundamentalist Christians, Muslim extremists and literalist Jews who have banded together to stop anyone from finding out about this discovery, even willing to kill to prevent the world from reading this other Genesis.

Lucy agrees to fly a plane to France with the scripture, but her plane crashes and she is discovered by Adam, a young soldier who was kidnapped and assaulted by soldiers. Adam believes that Lucy is his Eve and that they are living in the Garden of Eden.

This is a big book, full of so many themes it can make your head spin. Lucy and Adam's life in Eden parallels the Biblical story, particularly when another soldier lands in their garden. His presence dramatically changes the dynamic of the Garden. Is he the embodiment of the devilish snake from Genesis?

The violence that is an everyday part of life in the Middle East is explored as a root cause of the rise of  dangerous religious fundamentalism. Throw in the possibility of life on other planets and the fear of that knowledge endangering religious doctrine. Add in the discovery of very early human drawings in caves in France and you've got a lot to think about.

Naslund has packed a lot of ideas into 350 pages, and her characters are well-drawn and interesting. Lucy and Adam's life in the garden is fascinating, and thriller fans will be rewarded with an action-packed sequence that resolves the story. Adam & Eve is the thinking person's answer to The DaVinci Code.


Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dadadadum...Snap Snap.....Dadadadum..Snap Snap....

The critics pretty much slammed it, but I have to say that I found the Broadway show The Addams Family delightful. True, the songs are not very memorable, but it is a funny show and the performers are fantastic.

The opening song featuring the entire Addams Family, including long-dead members risen from the grave, sets the tone and introduces the wacky family. How Bebe Neuwirth is able to walk in the iconic skin-tight black dress is a physical miracle. Not to mention the front which is "cut down to Venezuela" to quote Gomez. (At least she gets some more movement in the second act when the belt at her knees is gone.)

Jackie Hoffmann plays Grandma with such gusto, she has many of the funniest lines. In the dinner scene, she ad libs a line that  had the cast cracking up laughing, with Neuwirth looking down into her lap and her shoulders shaking. Her best line is to young Pugsley when she says that drinking the potion "would make Mary Poppins look like Medea". When Pugsley says he doesn't understand her reference, she tells him to "put down the texting and READ A BOOK".  The audience howled and applauded wildly.

Adam Riegler is a charmer as Pugsley. He plots to break up his sister Wednesday's romance with her 'normal' fiance Luke. Kevin Chamberlain is delightfully devilish as Uncle Fester, who acts as a kind of narrator for the show.

Carolee Carmelo and Terrence Mann are wonderful as the Beinekes, the parents of Luke. Mann and Lane do a fun song and dance together, and Carmelo has a hilarious scene after she drinks the potion by mistake.

Lane and Neuwirth shine as the stars in this show, and their tango is delicious. Lane's comedic timing is shown to perfection when he says to Morticia as they are discussing whose grandma Grandma really is,
"MY mother? (pause...pause...pause) I thought she was YOUR mother!" Even though you can see the line coming from a mile away, Lane milks it for all it's worth.

The Addams Family appeals to adults and teens, and it's not just nostalgia for the 1960s TV show. The subplot of Morticia and Mrs. Beineke dealing with aging and marriage is touching, as is the relationship between Wednesday and her brother Pugsley.

The show is very funny, it's always great to see Neuwirth dance and sing (her dance with the ancestors is  wonderful) and Lane does what he does best- make us laugh. There are discount tickets available for the show at the TKTS booth and online at playbill.com and theatermania.com. It's worth your time and a discounted ticket to laugh for a few hours.

Meeting President Carter

Met President jimmy Carter at a book signing yesterday. He signs books faster than anyone I have ever seen! It was an honor to meet him.
Originally uploaded by bookchickdi

I had the honor of meeting President Jimmy Carter at his book signing for White House Diary at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle store in NYC on September 20th.

It was a good crowd, and my line mates were an interesting group, we shared a lively conversation. (Which was good because we were together for over two hours.)

They are always well organized at Barnes & Noble, and this was no exception. I had heard from others who had been to one of his signings before that President Carter was a fast signer, and boy was he. You barely had time to say hello to him as he signed our books, and you were off. There was an area set up for photos which was nice, some people do not allow photos.

This book looks very intriguing; if you saw the 60 Minutes interview, you know what I'm talking about.

The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove

The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove by Susan Gregg Gilmore
Published by Shaye Areheart Books
Crown Publishing
Hardcover $23

The cover of the ARC of Susan Gregg Gilmore's The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove is eye catching; the back of a young girl's head covered with a ring of daisies in the foreground, looking down a path bordered with colorful flowers at a southern style mansion (think Gone With the Wind's Tara) in the background. 

Born in 1951, Bezellia was named after her father's ancestor, a woman who fought off Indians who attacked their Nashville settlement. Young Bezellia wore her ancestor's moniker proudly, hoping to live up to the first Bezellia's name.

Bezellia's father was a wealthy and busy doctor, from a well respected Nashville family. Her mother was a woman from 'the wrong side of the tracks' who desperately desired to fit into Nashville society. She was an unhappy woman, of whom Bezellia said "Mother with a cup of coffee in her hand was not a particularly kind or attentive person and (that) Mother with a gin and tonic in her hand was simply mean and withdrawn."

Two household servants, Maizelle and Nathaniel, were loyal to the Grove family. Like another Southern novel, Kathryn Stockett's popular The Help, they were always available to provide the care and attention to Bezellia and her younger sister that they didn't get from their parents.

Bezellia's mother treated them badly, and Maizelle and Nathaniel usually took it without complaint (except when Maizelle would occasionally spit into her boss's cup of coffee), although since the book is written from Bezellia's point of view, perhaps that is how Bezellia saw it. Another recent novel, Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin, showed a more troubled and realistic relationship between the white employers and their black household employees.

Nathaniel's son Samuel comes to help his father one day, and sparks fly between Samuel and Bezellia. Nashville in the 1960s was not a place where a young white lady and a young black man could have an open relationship, and if Bezellia's mother or other townspeople found out, all hell would break loose.

The setting of the novel in the 1960s is key, as it addresses the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, and the feminist movement through the eyes of young people. It was an exhilarating, frightening time for all, but especially for young adults looking for their place in the world.

What I though this novel addressed really well was the concept of how your youthful experiences follow you through to adulthood. As the story progresses, we see why Bezellia's mother, who is a very unsympathetic character, became the sad, lonely, bitter alcoholic she was.  She ends up being the most complex character in the novel.

It also addresses an age-old dilemma for young people; what do you owe your family and what do you owe yourself? Bezellia goes away to college, but when family issues press, she must decide what comes first: her responsibility to family or to herself. Many readers will be able to relate to that.

At various points in the novel newspaper articles about the Grove family are inserted. It gives the reader a perspective of the family from the town's point of view. The first page is Bezellia's birth notice and the final page is her death notice, but perhaps Gilmore will grace us with the two-thirds of Bezellia's life that isn't in the book. She is a character worthy of more exploration.

Rating 3.5 out of 5 stars

Patti LuPone at Barnes & Noble

Broadway legend Patti LuPone appeared at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle store in NYC on September 16th to promote Patti LuPone- A Memoir, written with Digby Diehl.

The overflow audience was treated to not only a frank discussion of the book with Tom Santopietro, but Ms. LuPone also sang four songs for the delighted group. She started at the beginning, as a four-year-old child performing on stage and realizing that is where she belonged.

She moved through her Juliard years, then her first Broadway show, The Robber Bridegroom, which although it ran for only 14 performances, LuPone received her first Tony nomination.  She sang a lovely rendition of Sleepy Man from the show.

LuPone described the difficulty of singing in Evita, losing her voice frequently and missing several performances. She said "every night, I was scared out of my mind" before her performance, and mentioned that the actress who portrayed Evita in the Australian production gave up music altogether after her run.

She spotted the incomparable Zoe Caldwell in the back of the room, and Ms. Caldwell received a well deserved standing ovation from all.

The discussion of LuPone's run in Anything Goes led to her singing Cole Porter's I Get a Kick (Out of You).  Anything Goes is such a happy, fun show, LuPone said "it should be on Broadway always".

Calling her concert performance with the New York Philharmonic in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd a "great experience from start to finish" she moved into a discussion of her most recent Broadway show, Gypsy.


But everyone perked their ears up when Sunset Boulevard was mentioned. LuPone laughingly said "I didn't tell half the story!" Saying "I'm gonna say stuff, f*#k, I don't care", she went on to say about the creator Andrew Lloyd Webber, "everyone knows Andrew is a screw loose, a strange dude".

She said that the London production was a "juggernaut of bad energy" and "everyone recognized all the signs, but went forward anyway." She decried "the underhanded method they used to get me to crumble so they wouldn't have to pay my New York salary."

(LuPone found out that she would not be the lead in the Broadway production as she was contracted to when she read it in a gossip column. She successfully sued the producers.)

The next song was Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered from Pal Joey, a strong yet sweet version. After an audience member asked why she no longer sang I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables in her concerts, LuPone offered to sing it, but her accompanist did not have the sheet music. As if on cue, another audience member pulled the music out of her bag and it was in the right key for LuPone. She left everyone with tears in their eyes and I got goosebumps as she sang this moving song, now forever linked with Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle is good, but she's no Patti LuPone.

The evening was amazing, the chance to hear LuPone sing such iconic songs in such an intimate setting was worth waiting for three hours on the floor of Barnes & Noble. She was also very kind to each person who got a book signed, and I can't wait to read it.

Strangers at the Feast a fantastic novel

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Todos Santos

Todos Santos by Deborah Clearman
Published by Black Lawrence Press
Trade Paperback $18

Good fiction can do two things very well: make the reader empathetic and take the reader places she wouldn't normally go.

Todos Santos by Deborah Clearman takes the reader along on a journey to Guatemala with her character, Catherine Barnes. Catherine is having marital problems (her professor husband cheats on her), and her teenage son Isaac flunked 8th grade.

She decides to take Isaac to Guatemala, and work on illustrating her next book by visiting the remote town of Todos Santos. Catherine leaves Isaac to work in her sister Zelda's shop while she goes into the interior of Guatemala with Oswaldo, her handsome guide.

Catherine grows close to the owners of the hotel, particularly Nicolasa, a young woman married to a German man, who longs to move to Europe. The town of Todos Santos is wary of outsiders, and many of the residents are whipped into a frenzy by a politician who warns them of Americans who have come to steal their children.

Isaac makes a friend of his own, Ben, a boy from New Jersey who is living with his American family in Guatemala. They make plans to go on an adventure for the weekend, and after tragedy strikes, Isaac is kidnapped.

The author succeeds in immersing the reader in the sights and sounds of  Guatemala. You can taste the delicious foods, feel the heat, and she brings alive the vibrant and colorful marketplace, the center of the town.

If you close your eyes, you feel like you are on the crowded bus that Isaac and Ben take on their trip. At every stop, as more people pushed to get on, you get a sense of claustrophobia. When the boys are caught out in a storm on a boat, you feel the rising terror that they feel.

Clearman does a wonderful job with her characterization of Isaac. She really gets into the head of a teen boy- the sulky, sullen attitude they have, mixed with a desire to be adventurous. I felt like I understood where he was coming from, maybe from having two sons of my own.

I didn't feel like I understood the character of Catherine as well. When her son was kidnapped, she seemed to spend more time trying to find romance with Oswaldo than working on getting her son back. I didn't get the sense of terror that a parent would have, learning that her son was missing in a foreign country. I had a difficult time empathizing with her.

I would have liked to known more about sister Zelda; it seemed to me that she has a more interesting story to tell.

I would recommend Todos Santos for anyone who likes to read about other cultures; Clearman clearly knows of what she writes, having visited there many times.  The reader gets to see a Guatemala that most visitors don't in this novel.

Rating 3 of 5
Thanks to Sarah at Little Bird Publicity for providing me with a review copy.

One Flight Up by Susan Fales- Hill

Four friends who met at the elite Manhattan Sibley School for Girls are at a crossroads of life and love in Susan Fales-Hill's novel One Flight Up.


India is a hard-charging divorce attorney with a high maintenance actress mother, an addiction to chocolate,  and a loving French chef boyfriend. When the man she left at the altar years ago for cheating on her comes back into her life, she is torn between her strong attraction to the "bad boy" and her understanding, caring boyfriend.

Abby has a artist husband and two children whom she adores, but soon she is forced to face the fact that her husband is a cheater when she sees him kissing a gorgeous younger woman. When her son's music teacher shows romantic interest in her, she is tempted to find happiness for herself.

Monique is a doctor, who has been married for many years to a man with a time-consuming financial career. Like many long-married couples with dual careers and children, the spark has gone out of their marriage, and when a sexy young EMT shows her some attention, she makes a mistake that could endanger everything for which she has worked.

Esme is described as a "Columbian Scarlett O'Hara", a woman who enjoys receiving all the male attention from the moment she walks into a room. Esme frequently cheats on her nice-guy husband, just as her father cheats on her mother.

The author does a wonderful job creating characters with lives that the reader would envy- wealthy, smart, beautiful- and yet she gives them problems that face most women. How do you balance work, family, and love?

She understands the realities of long-term monogamy, and how hard it is to work at staying happy in a marriage. I liked that while she showed the excitement of a new sexual relationship, she also showed the consequences. If you are thinking about straying, this novel will give you something to think about.

The setting of Manhattan is a great character too. I enjoyed recognizing the various landmarks Fales-Hill uses, and the reader will feel like a real Upper East Sider as she reads. I also loved the mental pictures the author creates of the gorgeous dresses the ladies wear to their many social events.

Lifetime TV would be wise to option this book as a movie- and hire Sophia Vergara of TV's "Modern Family" as Esme, she'd be perfect!


One Flight Up has interesting characters, sex, fabulous clothes and Manhattan- it's Sex and the City for married women.

Rating 3.5 stars of 5

Thanks to Atria Books for providing a copy of the book.

The Elephant Keeper casts a spell

Fictional books about animals are in vogue, with Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain, and Yann Martel's Life of Pi, each experiencing an extended stay on the bestseller list.

Add Christopher Nicholson's The Elephant Keeper to that list. The book cast a spell upon me, and I read it in two sittings, unable to put it down. Set in the late 1700s, the novel tells the tale of young Tom Page, who is tasked by his employer to write a book about the elephant he has been caring for many years.

Tom's father was head groom to John Harrington, a wealthy sugar merchant. Tom loved horses and followed in his father's footsteps. One day, a ship from Africa unloaded on the docks and and two elephants were among the cargo. 

No one had ever seen such incredible creatures, and they were disoriented and ill from their long sea journey. Harrington was a shrewd businessman, and after asking Tom if he though the elephants would live, purchased them from the ship's captain.

Tom takes to the elephants immediately and is eager to work with them. At first they were angry and wary of Tom, making several successful attempts to pick the locks of their crates to escape, but eventually they began to trust him.

He names them Timothy and Jenny, although is careful to not share this information with anyone else less they think he is mad. I also think by not sharing their names with anyone else, he keeps them from becoming attached to anyone else; they belong only to Tom.

Tom's relationship with the elephants sadly precludes normal relationships with humans, particularly women. He sleeps in the barn near the elephants, spends all his time with them, and when a lovely young lady named Lizzie wants to become closer to Tom, he spurns her. His responsibility is to the beautiful creatures whom he believes need him.

As the story progresses, the reader is privy to dialogue between Tom and Jenny. Is Jenny really speaking to Tom, or is this an example of Tom sliding into some sort of madness?

Not all goes well with Tom and the elephants, and the twists and turns of this tragic tale are masterfully told by Nicholson. The thought-provoking end to this magical story will be turned over in the mind of the reader for a long time, and I suspect people will either love the ending or hate it. I loved it.

Rating 4 stars of 5.

Friday Five- Volume 8

The Upper East Side has so many fabulous thrift stores, and many of them sell books. I've gotten some great books, some of them just a few months old, others older books by my favorite authors. This week's Friday Five is:

Five Terrific Books I've Found at the Thrift Stores


1. Crooked Little Heart by Anne LaMott. I fell in love with Anne's writing in Grace (Eventually) Thoughts on Faith.  This year, Imperfect Birds,  was published, and I got to see Anne at a reading and meet her. Imperfect Birds continues the story of Rosie and her Mom and was so heartfelt and real. I found the second book in the series, Crooked Little Heart, and was so excited. I'm on the lookout for the first book, Rosie.


2. When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson.  I've never read Kate Atkinson, but I've so many good things about her writing, and this book from 2008 got so much good word, I had to pick it up.

3. the Condition by Jennifer Haigh. Haigh wrote one of my all-time favorites, Mrs. Kimble, and I was thrilled to find her latest book about a troubled family and their vacation on Cape Cod.

4. Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear.  Winspear writes the Maisie Dobbs series, about a female private investigator in post- World War I England. They are mysteries for more literary-minded people, and this is the 6th novel in the series.

5. The Privileges by Jonathan Dee. I found this gem of a novel but a few months after it published in hardcover and nearly squealed with joy when I saw it. It is about a wealthy New York City family, and I found it intriguing.

Have you found any great buys at thrift stores near you?

Cyndi Lauper rocks at CBS Early Show performance

I got to see and hear the lovely and talented Cyndi Lauper perform for CBS Early Show (airdate July 30). She was fabulous, singing two songs from her new blues CD Memphis Blues- Crossroads and Rollin and Tumblin. I have the CD and it is terrific; she has the perfect voice for the blues.

She also sang "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", which turned into a huge crowd sing-a-long, and she closed with an acoustic version of "True Colors".

Everyone loved her and after Harry Smith mentioned twice that she recently turned 57, Cyndi asked him "What am I- a car? You keep talking about my age!" Smith growled, "If you're a car, I want to take a ride".   Cyndi blushed and laughed.

My review of Tom Rachman's wonderful "The Imperfectionists"

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