BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYSThank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.MY BOOK BEGINNINGOne sunny April afternoon in 1990 two Englishman strode up the steps of London's Tate Gallery, passed beneath the imposing ..read more

BOOK THOUGHTSBooks and BirthdaysToday is my husband’s birthday so I baked his favorite German chocolate cake! I have other birthday plans in the works, but I'm going to take a book break first. I plan to put my feet up for a few minutes with this terrific book, Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by husband and wife writing team Laney Salisbury and Aly ..read more

 BOOK THOUGHTSKingsley Amis, Favorite Author"If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing." ~ Kingsley Amis in Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis was born on this day in 1922. He is in my pantheon of favorite authors, right up there with Graham Greene, Jim Harrison, Iris Murdoch, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, and Evelyn Waugh. But Amis holds a special place in my reader’s heart. His ..read more

 BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYSThank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.MY BOOK BEGINNINGOnly an idiot would travel without a book.-- from Last Chance in Paris by Lynda Marron. Well, that sentence caught ..read more

BOOK THOUGHTSOn ComminglingDo you commingle your books?  My husband and I commingle our finances, and even our music CDs. But we would no sooner commingle our books as we would our socks! The picture above is a snapshot of my husband's shelves in our home library. We may keep our books separate, but I get the lion’s share of shelf space. He gets this wall. I, on the other hand, get two walls ..read more

 BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYSWell, what happened last week? Beats me! I totally spaced Book Beginnings! I must have had my mind on Easter. Sorry!Thank you for coming back this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right ..read more

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYSThank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.MY BOOK BEGINNINGWhen the sun had gone, I saw that the water was streaked with great patches of crimson and gold.-- from I'll Never be ..read more

IT'S MY BLOGIVERSARY!Rose City Reader turns sweet 16 today. I started this blog 16 years ago and it is hard for me to think it has been around for so long. I celebrated my blogiversary by taping an episode of the Rare Book Cafe, a book vlog you can find on Facebook here or Instagram here. Give them a follow!I started Rose City Reader to keep track of all the book lists I was working on. I ..read more

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYSThank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.MY BOOK BEGINNINGThe first thing you need to understand is that most large organizations in the private sector are run by curmudgeons like ..read more

BOOK THOUGHTSWomen AuthorsMarch is Women's History Month, so I thought I'd highlight some of the women authors sitting on my TBR shelves. My reading is split pretty evenly between male and female authors and this is reflected in the books on my TBR shelves. Who are some of your favorite women writers? Or those you want to try?Here’s are two stacks of books by women. In the stack on the ..read more